Crimson Kiss
by mauvemaven
Summary: A Spin-off to Finally. Team Flash had just come home from their mission in Starling City with nothing much to go on and the case that brought them there had begun to grow cold. Everybody seemed to carry on with their own lives, not really bothered by the lack of progress. And everything was fine, until the insidious threat began renewing its murderous intent. Snowbarry/Olicity AU.
1. Chapter 1

This work can be read as a stand-alone fic but reading the parent fic Finally is strongly suggested to experience this work more thoroughly and completely.

This is my first time writing a crime/mystery fic, so please bear with me. I hope you do enjoy this! This work is unbeta'd and all mistakes are mine. Also, no copyright infringement is intended. And, finally, all faves/favorites/reviews/comments are always welcome! With that, I leave you folks to it! XOXO!

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Dr. Caitlin Snow suddenly felt her blood running cold, her vision dimming. She felt weightless, breathless. _Sit!_ Her brain commanded. She followed on instinct and felt herself leaning into the glass window and sliding down on the floor. _Breathe!_

She had been trained to be cool, calm, collected in the face of emergencies; ready to act; her wits about her. She didn't bat an eyelash when she had needed to punch a hole through Barry's lung to save him from poison mist. She didn't even blink when she had prevented Lyla from bleeding to death after a nearly fatal encounter with a boomerang. Heck, she had not faltered when she had faced being blown up to bits by a crazy pyromaniac alone in an abandoned warehouse.

But it was different now. Cool, calm and collected had gone out the window after having Barry Allen almost die on her for the fifth time that day.

 _Central City, seven hours earlier..._

It had been another bright summer morning in Central City. Caitlin had texted Barry the night before that she would be dropping by the CCPD crime lab in the morning to get updates on the case they were following. In truth, she just wanted to see him. They hadn't really seen each other since they got back from Starling City the weekend before last. He hadn't dropped by S.T.A.R. Labs that often in the past two weeks – which brought her to another reason she was detouring his office instead of starting her day early in her own laboratory. There was something off between the guys and Dr. Wells. What it was, she didn't really know but something had changed. And since Dr. Wells hadn't shown up in the lab for the past week, she didn't really have much to do – hence the trip to Barry's CCPD hangout.

He had texted her back immediately and told her to drop by early. He could only meet her for a short while, though. Apparently, even he had to catch up with his back logs. Hoping to make up for the hassle, she decided to surprise him with breakfast – hence the coffee and muffins from Jitters.

She had just entered his lab when she saw him on the floor, choking up, with his lips swelling up and a very peculiar rash breaking out all over his body. It was a quick diagnosis: anaphylactic shock and she knew that she only had seconds to act. And act she did.

By the time the coffee and muffins hit the floor, she had already shouted for help, and was scrambling to him and retrieving an epinephrine autoinjector from her bag. She quickly plunged the Epipen in front of his right thigh and opened the collar of his shirt. The effect was instantaneous – his breathing had improved by the time she heard the first onrush of footsteps by the door. It was probably the only time she thanked the universe for her shellfish allergy!

It wasn't even ten minutes before she and Barry were in the ER. It was unusually busy for a Friday morning so it was a good thing that she was one of Barry's emergency contacts and was ready to give the doctors a quick medical history. By the time Barry's surrogate father, Detective Joe West and the senior detective's partner, Detective Eddie Thawne, had made it to the ER, Barry was already pumped full of potent antihistamines. They couldn't really speak with him because he was groggy from his medications. _It's not like he could talk, too,_ Caitlin thought. He had a really swollen tongue.

After giving a quick hello to her, Eddie took his leave and went to go find the doctor. Joe, who had heretofore maintained his professional decorum, broke formality and gave a very relieved sigh before he swept her in a bear hug and thanked her for being there for his son.

"Thank you," Joe said as he tightened his embrace around her.

Caitlin returned the hug and felt a little teary-eyed with the same relief. She didn't want to think about what would've happened if she hadn't been there. After all, in the context of an allergic reaction, a supercharged immune system, which was another quirk of Barry's hypermetabolism, was not something to be thankful for.

"What happened?" Joe asked as the both of them recovered and stepped back from each other.

"I don't really know. I just found him on the floor. And then I was stabbing him with an Epipen," she said, almost robotically, before being plagued by a sense of guilt because she felt like she was missing something. "He doesn't have allergies, right? Because I've read his medical history so many times, I've practically have it memorized… and there was never any mention of allergic reactions."

"He didn't," Joe said. The fact that all of that had changed now went without saying.

His confirmation had brought something to the fore of Caitlin's mind. Barry's lack of known allergies and his symptom profile, especially that almost pathognomonic rash and its dense concentration around his lips, was eerily similar to the latest victims in their case. "Is it just me or does this look familiar? Remember the case you brought to us three weeks ago?" It wasn't an official case then. It looked like it was going to be one now.

Joe nodded his head.

"I don't think I would forget a rash like that. And here," she said as she took Joe closer to Barry and lifted his oxygen mask to reveal his horribly swollen, blotchy and unusually red lips. "Look at the rash around his lips."

The detective nodded his head again. "So this isn't just some reaction to something he ate."

"I'm not saying that it isn't but it wouldn't hurt to make sure. I don't have privileges in this hospital so I don't really have the authority to order the tests we need to figure this out," she said as she took something out of her bag. It looked like a really long Q-tip with a plastic cap on top. _A swab,_ Joe had thought as Caitlin proceeded to do what he'd guessed.

"So, I'm swabbing his lips now so that we can have something to work on. Cisco is already on his way here to see him. I'll tell him to run this," she said as she capped the specimen and hid it in her bag. She was just about to tell Joe that they also needed a full toxicology screen but was interrupted by Eddie, who had Barry's attending physician in tow. She had whispered it to Joe instead.

Joe immediately agreed with her idea and after getting an update from the ER doctor, he informed the physician of a possible connection to an ongoing 'poisoning' case. The doctor then ordered a full tox screen and a bevy of other tests, which had Caitlin biting her lip because she knew that it would take forever in labs that were less advanced than her own. But since it was infinitely harder to covertly extract blood than it was to obtain a swab ( _Yes, even if she had an extraction kit ready in her bag!_ ), she had forced herself to let it be. However, the detective, who had wanted to get a jump on the investigation ( _Bless his soul!_ ), requested that a sample of Barry's blood be released to the CCPD for further forensic analysis.

Once the doctor left, Joe told her to ask Cisco to wait for the sample to save them all another trip. That earned him another very grateful hug from her.

Eddie's urgently ringing phone cut short their interaction. Eddie picked up and told Joe that their boss wanted an update and a preliminary assessment. It was obvious that the senior detective was torn between wanting to remain with Barry and reporting back to the station to start the investigation, so she volunteered to stay with the currently knocked out patient.

"Don't worry, Joe," she assured, "I won't let anything happen to him."

"I know. But just the same, I'll leave a couple of officers on stand-by. Call me when anything changes," he answered as he laid a hand on her shoulder with one last look at his son and left.

They ended up spending four hours in the ER before the doctor released Barry. With strict instructions for monitoring, a greatly improved yet still loopy Barry ( _She couldn't help but smile when he had sleepily greeted her with 'Hello, my cutie Caitie-Cats! I'm glad there are two of you!' as soon as he was able to speak_ ) was discharged into her care. By the time all the papers were taken care off, Joe, who had been taken off the case by his Captain, was already back to give them a ride to S.T.A.R. Labs. They had both decided that it was the best place for Barry's continued care, as well as his protection, against what was largely an unknown threat.

 _Beep… Beep… Beep…_

The faint but reassuringly steady rhythm of Barry's pulse monitor brought Caitlin back to the present.

 _All of that, to her, felt like a lifetime ago._ Since then, Barry had only gotten worse. In the three hours after she had brought him back to S.T.A.R. Labs, he had turned blue, collapsed and hadn't regained consciousness since. She was lucky that she was able to intubate him just before his airway had closed all the way up. Then, just when the swelling around his throat had seemed to resolve, he started choking on his own vomit. Now, his vital signs were plummeting every so often. It wouldn't have been a problem if she had a full medical staff at her disposal. But with Dr. Wells being MIA, Detective West being on the hunt for a suspect and Cisco splitting his time between helping her and the detective, they were all stretched too thin.

She had been alone when Barry's vital signs crashed for the fourth time since his release from the hospital, and it had been that close a call to have her fighting a full blown panic attack just inside his treatment room in the cortex. She knew she needed help. And there was really only one person she could call.

"Felicity," she exhaled unsteadily into her phone, "It's Barry."

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Ha, finally a chapter! Don't be scared to let me know what you think by leaving comments/reviews below! Kisses! To those who want to check out Finally, just look under my stories and go from there.


	2. Chapter 2

So sorry for the long wait! My bad! I know. Anyway, this explains some more of Olicity from Finally (and its new bonus epilogue) - some backstory, some vignettes from after Right Back Atcha, Mr. Queen (Chap 3 of Extra! Extra!). And I promise this'll move along faster after this chapter. And uhm, let's assume that Starling City and Central City belong to the same timezone. I'm so sorry for this not being the best but I just kinda' have to post this now before my signal cuts out. XOXO

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Chapter 2

 _Starling City, 4:30 pm_

Felicity Smoak was just winding down another Friday afternoon in Queen Incorporated. She was spinning on her office chair while twirling a pen on her fingers. It was actually the first slow day she had had in a month but there was still roughly half-an-hour of pretending to work left before she could officially clock out and leave for Oliver's place. Good thing his penthouse was literally five minutes away in zero traffic.

They were finally together and had been for the last two weeks. Hard to believe but they had had two weeks of living the good life - a Boring, with a humongous capital B, but good life nonetheless.

She spent her days in QI, deeply involved with a slew of new projects Applied Sciences was rolling out over the next 3-5 years. It was exciting in its own right but boring in a way because it was very different from the thrill and rush of being in the thick of it, as she was in her former night job. Oh, she was happy to let the threats and targets go but she missed the high of using a powerful computer for more than just email.

She would have to admit that the absence of the Arrow had radically changed how they spent their nights. She and Oliver now spent work nights apart except for the occasional dinner when their respective schedules allowed. Weekends they invariably spent with each other, alternating between his place and hers.

They were spending tonight in his place and having their standing once-a-weekend movie date. She had always preferred the cinematic experience herself, especially when she found the time because nothing beat the big screen. But after Oliver had valiantly endured what he could of the Lord-of-the-Rings trilogy (ahem, two-thirds of the Trilogy to be exact – she had to jump him just before The Return of the King started to distract him from obsessing about Legolas's bad form!) with her two weekends ago and after he had silently suffered through two back-to-back movies with her at the cinema last weekend ( Yes, for such a big bad vigilante who thrived in the shadows, he didn't really enjoy dark confined spaces – his white-knuckled grip on the arm rest had proven it!), she felt that he had deserved a quiet night in away from the Friday-night crowd and the pick of the films for movie night.

She had been curious about his picks. And because she hated mysteries, she had been trying to trip him up! But alas! He was notoriously keeping mum. That man and his secrets! One day, she promised herself, he was going to open up and spill it all – and she would be there for it.

A shrill ringing from her phone broke her from her musings. It was Caitlin. She had been meaning to call her friend for a good long session of squeeing girl talk but hadn't really had the time except for a few quick texts. It was a good thing then that she now had time to kill.

"Hi, Caitlin!" She said into her phone, her voice happy to be hearing from one of her closest friends.

Her greeting went unreturned. A heavy beat of silence followed. It worried her. Caitlin was usually so direct. "Caitlin, what's wrong?"

"Felicity," Caitlin said with a soughing breath. "It's Barry."

And just like that, boring-but-good went to disturbing-and-shit.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Oliver had just gotten home from another endless meeting with his executives and the rest of the Queen Incorporated's board about trying to get a number of reforms for their employees and their benefits. Stellmoor basically massacred every benefits program QC employees had previously enjoyed, and while Palmer Technologies had worked to return them, it was not fully implemented before Ray Palmer's untimely death had led to Oliver's reacquisition of the company. It would have been better had Felicity been there but it was strictly upper management and the board who had met in one of the more exclusive and private restaurants on the other side of the city.

He had ended up arguing with some factions, who were all for conservative measures, telling them that, although they would have to take stringent steps to rehabilitate the company, employee welfare was not where costs should be cut. In a time when the city also needed the help in the effort to rebuild in the aftermath of the past three years (as evidenced by his meeting with the Chamber of Commerce and City Hall the week before), keeping their workers employed and healthy and with a workable flexibility in man-hours to see to their families and the rebuilding effort should be a priority.

He had a few of the more progressive board members and a handful of his top executives on his side but it was slow going. It still pained him to think that he had a hand in letting his family's business go to shit. He had thought of it as no great personal loss to have let QC slip from his fingers but he had neglected to think about the thousands upon thousands of his former employees and the fate they had suffered in the past three years, not to mention the major catastrophes that he and his family had a hand in making.

That was something he was working hard to correct. He had a singular determination to right his wrongs, to do better, to give back, especially now that he had lost the Arrow. He was putting most of the surprise $750-million net windfall inheritance from the Dearden part of his family (that he had been made eligible to inherit at age 30 [or after a year of his mother's death] from his mother's parents) to good use. After he had Walter Steele establish a rainy-day fund for the whole of Team Arrow, he had used a sizable portion of it to reacquire his father's erstwhile company – one of the city's top employers and had personally injected almost $50-milllion into various rehabilitation programs. On top of that, he had started looking through local contractors to rebuild a number of properties he had inherited or re-acquired. The Queen manor and grounds alone was a two-and-a-half-year rebuilding project that he could use to give them work. Lord knows, the people of his city were in dire need of more jobs.

But everything now seemed to take a lot more effort. It was even more exhausting to him than running around as the Arrow. The Arrow had more manageable objectives and was a heck of a lot more efficient without all the bureaucracy. This, this new life that he was building was like slogging through mud.

He sighed and chose instead to focus on the good things. The board didn't reject his proposal outright and had promised to study the matter more closely. One of the contractors had already given him a reasonable and workable figure so far for the mansion rebuild. And he had a date with Felicity that very night. Well, actually, in just under thirty minutes, if he wanted to be precise – just enough time to reheat the casserole Raisa had earlier left for them, let the exotic red Thea had recently added to Verdant's wine selection breathe, queue his films for movie night and take a quick shower.

He had been looking forward to spending the whole weekend with Felicity. The past two weekends had been bliss, the weekdays – not-so-much. Between the launch of her projects under QI's Applied Sciences Division and his going through all the remaining Queen and Dearden assets and liabilities with his lawyers and accountants and seemingly endless meetings with the QI higher-ups and the city's local contractors, they were only able to see each other for dinner on a weekday twice in the past two weeks. With the exception of weekends, all the rest of their interactions were limited to quick hellos by phone, short texts and one late night Skype call.

It was crazy, he thought, that they saw less of each other now that they were together than last year when they couldn't have been further apart. He wouldn't have traded it for the world though – well, except maybe, for just the two of them on a relaxing and quiet weekend away from the city. He was actually itching to whisk them both to the one property he just discovered that his father had kept off the books – their small summer house by the lake. He had yet to ask Felicity if she was up to a two-hour drive on a Saturday morning.

Or they could always put it off until after next weekend's Fourth of July barbecue – the one he insisted on hosting here in his house on his private pool and roof deck. Either way, he couldn't wait for his weekend to start.

With the casserole in the oven, the red popped and breathing and the films queued (Yes, he had finally gotten himself a WEFLIX subscription – even if it galled him to have anything from Wayne Enterprises – for Felicity's sake!), he was on his way up to his en suite bathroom when his phone buzzed. It should be Felicity. She'd be on her way over or would be soon. That brought a smile to his face.

"Hey, are you on your way?" He asked as it was her who was calling.

His gut took a steep dive when no answer was forthcoming. Then he heard her take a deep, rattling breath. That could not be good, he thought. "Felicity, what's wrong?"

"Oliver," her voice cracked, "Caitlin called. It's Barry. He's in critical condition with no one but her taking care of him in S.T.A.R. Labs. It… it doesn't look good."

It was hard to believe that Barry could ever really be in a bad situation. Heck, he had just seen him goof around his hockey gods two weekends ago. "What happened?" He asked her as he took a seat on the top stairs. He felt like he needed to be seated.

"Remember the case they were working?" She sniffled, "They think Barry's the latest victim. The case is thin so they haven't made any real headway. Caitlin's asking for back-up. She feels that they're running around like headless chickens."

"Okay, I'll pick you up in 10 minutes," he said while mentally running down the things they needed to bring.

"All right, I already texted Digg. I'll get us the earliest train or plane tickets I could find," she said as she began to slip into action mode. Crying can wait.

Oliver quickly ran the math in his head. It was 600 miles to Central City. It was a 3-4 hour train ride. It would take them at least 3 hours on the earliest commercial flight. At his Gulfstream's top speed and accounting for city traffic, they would be there in 2.5 hours tops. It was their fastest option. "No need. We're taking the jet."

"Oliver, we don't exactly have access to the company jet. Austerity measures and all," Felicity reminded him. The whole QI fleet was grounded until the company started to make more money. Until then, everyone must fly commercial.

"I know. We're taking mine," Oliver said. It was one of his investments that he hadn't really told Felicity about yet.

"Since when did… No, never mind. I'll see you."

"Okay, see you."

It wasn't even a minute before his phone started ringing again. It was Diggle this time.

"John," he said by way of greeting.

"Hey, man. Just let me get a few things together. Felicity and I will pick you up in the helo instead. That would cut our time to the airfield in half. Do you need me to get anything else?"

"No, I've got it. Just get here as fast as you can," he replied.

"Okay. Give us 15 minutes tops."

And just like that, a relaxing night in gave way to a tense night out.

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Please feel free to let me know what you think. Kisses!


	3. Chapter 3

Another chapter! Finally! So sorry for the long wait between chapters but it looks like this is kinda the pace I'll be going at for the foreseeable future because high quality free time is scarce in my line of work. Anyway, I'll leave you to this. Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 3

 _Central City, 7:00pm_

Caitlin had been staring at the dissected remains of the mice she had exposed to the toxin she had obtained from all of the previous three victims. What she had discovered was nothing short of astounding, and if her findings were to be believed, they were all in for a very, very long night.

She had started her experiment a week ago, once she had purified enough of the toxin from the victims' samples. She had tried to determine the lethal dose but since the mice remained alive even if she had been injecting them with loads 10x more than the usual lethal dose of the most potent allergens, she had begun tinkering with route of exposure. She hadn't wanted to waste more of the finite amount of the toxin she had on hand. She had exposed another batch of mice to incremental doses of the toxin via aerosol, ingestion, and direct skin and mucosal contact to determine if the route was the key to the toxin's fatal effects. And yet the mice had continued to live. She had considered it a failed experiment – that is until just after Felicity had finished calming her down and refocusing her enough after her panic attack to notice the putrescent stench that had wafted to the cortex from their cages.

All the mice had died, well, save for her healthy controls and for the few which had been administered the lowest toxin load and lucky enough to survive the next three minutes it took her to give them a timely epinephrine shot. A quick review of the time lapse cameras showed that those mice given the highest toxin load died earlier and quicker than those given a lower dose, but not by much. All fatalities had died within a 2-hour window regardless of dose and route of exposure.

She had just been about to catalog her necropsy findings, when Cisco, who had just returned from retrieving Barry's hard drive from Joe's house, roared, "Caitlin!"

 _Not again._

But the shrill ringing from Barry's cardiac monitor could not be denied and had her rushing towards the treatment room at a dead run. Her eyes were focused on the monitor as it came into view, and the ominously flat line that registered had her visually checking all of the ECG leads that were connected to him. They were all intact. A quick pulse check as she had finally reached him corroborated the absence of any discernable cardiac activity. Cisco, who had preceded her into the room had already lowered the head of the bed and had already placed a step-stool at Barry's bedside for Caitlin to jump on and start compressions.

She had been about 10 seconds into the compression cycle, when she heard the onrush of footsteps on the floor. _Please, God, be Team Arrow_ , her brain hoped.

Cisco, who was in the process of detaching Barry from the mechanical ventilator and switching him over to a bag valve mask, saw Felicity through the glass and yelled for help over the still piercing trill, "Over here!"

"Oh my God," Felicity exclaimed at the scene that greeted her.

Oliver, who was not far behind and far less stunned, came running into the room, "Where do you need us?"

Caitlin looked over her shoulder to see all three members of Team Arrow. "Oliver, replace Cisco. Squeeze that bag half-way every 6 seconds. Digg, I need you at the defibrillator. Start charging to max. Felicity, help Cisco with the meds," she directed as the men scrambled to do as she said.

Digg was quick to do as he was told, switching on the defibrillator and cranking it to max. Oliver had competently replaced Cisco, who in turn had rushed to the crash cart while calling out, "Felicity, I need your help over here!"

That had effectively unrooted Felicity from the doorway and snapped her into action.

"Oliver, you know CPR, right?" Caitlin asked as her arms began to burn from the effort. She had been pushing hard and pushing fast.

"Yes," her friend answered as he continued to pump oxygen into Barry's lungs.

"Okay, I need you to switch with me for the next round. Cisco, you ready with the epinephrine?"

"Just about," Cisco replied as he took the syringe Felicity had handed over and plunged it into the glass vial of the life-saving drug. "Okay, got it," he said as he finished retrieving the required amount.

"Okay. Oliver, I need a carotid pulse check on my count," Caitlin said as she ticked down to her 2-minute mark. "Digg, you check his femoral… in 3-2-1," she said as she halted compressions, jumped down from her perch and anxiously stared at the monitor. She had her fingers on Barry's wrist as well, triple-checking for a pulse.

"No pulse," Digg shook his head after a beat.

"Same here," Oliver said – the both of them confirming what the absence of rebound against her fingers had signified.

The monitor showed some agonal complexes. _Not good enough._ "Start compressions," Caitlin tapped Oliver as she took over the bag. "Cisco, push it now."

"First epi given," Cisco said as he delivered the drug into Barry's IV line. He told Felicity to note down the time as he filled the syringe with another dose.

Another tense two minutes had passed before Caitlin yelled for another pulse check. Oliver had stopped pressing down on Barry's chest as she laid her own fingers against Barry's neck.

Nothing. No pulse.

"Nothing," Digg confirmed but he knew as soon as he saw the jagged lines on the screen that the defibrillator would be needed. He had the paddles at the ready even before Caitlin screamed, "Shock him!"

He laid the paddles on the conductive pads that were already on Barry's chest and shouted, "All clear?"

"Clear!" Caitlin and Oliver responded as they both stepped away from the bed.

Having visually confirmed the 'all clear', Digg discharged all 360 Joules on Barry's chest. A taut second passed. "We've got rhythm!" He exclaimed when he saw the regular ECG waveforms that started to form onscreen.

"I've got a pulse," Oliver said after a few beats.

"It's holding…" Caitlin said as she continued to pump oxygen into Barry's lungs and anxiously waited for the read out on his blood pressure. "And we've got pressure," she said as screen showed the return of arterial pressure. She stopped pressing on the bag and laid her hand on his chest to see if he was breathing on his own. _Please, Barry! Breathe!_

The answering rise of his chest against her fingers had her almost sagging to her knees with relief. "He's breathing. O2 sats are holding," she reported. "He's back!"

The tension around the room had visibly eased after that. Caitlin took a deep steadying breath before she found herself engulfing Oliver in a grateful hug. "I've never been so happy to have you guys here!"

"Same here," Oliver said as he returned her hug and passed her on to Felicity's waiting arms.

"How are you holding up?" Her blonde friend asked as she pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Barely, but thank you so much for coming," Caitlin sighed into her friend's hair. "I don't think Cisco and I could pull this off by ourselves."

Felicity gave her another squeeze and whispered, "We've got your back. Don't worry."

Caitlin squeezed her friend back in gratitude before she went over to Digg. Of the three, he would be the one from whom she would need the most help. "Thank you for being here," she said as she greeted him with a hug.

"Anytime," Digg said as he returned the embrace.

"Ever done a dialysis in the field?" She asked as she stepped back and looked up at him.

"Once," he answered matter-of-factly before he glanced back at Barry. "Is he that bad?"

"I hope not but with how things have been going… I… I just want to be prepared."

She felt Digg give her arm a reassuring squeeze. "Just tell me when," he said as he finally let her go.

"I bet you guys are hungry," Felicity said after all their hellos were dispensed with, "You guys can catch us up later. We brought dinner."

"Please tell me you got me a Big Belly Deluxe," Cisco prayed.

"No dressing, extra mustard. Onion rings and sriracha on the side," Felicity smiled.

"Oh my God, I could kiss you right now," Cisco exclaimed happily, then warily backtracked when he saw a menacing glint pass through Oliver's eyes, "Or not."

Felicity chuckled as Cisco hurriedly escaped to the cortex to mostly get away from Oliver. She turned back to Caitlin and looked at her expectantly. "Caitlin?"

"Go ahead. I'll finish up here and change first. I need a shower," she answered as she shooed her friends to dinner. She remembered what she had been doing before Barry coded again, so she sniffed herself and the air around her to check if any of the fetid stench of murine death had permeated past the mouse lab. _Looked like Cisco's supercharged charcoal nanofilters had done a great job_ , she thought when nothing but sterile air hit her nostrils. _Thank heavens for that!_

Felicity had nodded at her before the trio left her with Barry. She came to his bedside again, grabbing a stethoscope from the crash cart, just before she started a quick physical examination. Everything was _abnormally_ normal. _If everything was really fine, this shouldn't be happening – these repeated crashes._ And then she remembered that Barry had always been an exceptional case, and therefore, always an exception to the rule. Add to that the relatively unknown effects of the mysterious toxin, and hello, she usually found herself always a step behind. It irked her that she always had to play catch-up, with Barry suffering in the process. She couldn't help but brush her fingers against his hair.

 _Please don't die._

Her tears began to well up at the thought, so she distracted herself from it with work. She went about drawing multiple blood samples before he reattached him to the ventilator. She had hooked him up earlier to support his breathing and she hooked him up again to do just that. She'd also ask Cisco to take a chest x-ray at the very least. The more information she had at this point, the better. She had to be able to correlate Barry's data with those of the mice.

The mice reminded her of the shower she had needed. After she had convinced herself that he was fine for the moment (after another quick run through of his vitals), Caitlin finally left Barry's bedside, asked Cisco to run Barry's blood and headed straight for the showers.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

She came back to the cortex after a quick shower, dressed in a S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirt, an old pair of leggings she had discovered in her locker and a pair of Crocs she had stolen from one of the Labs' clean rooms. Her first instinct was to check on Barry but Digg had intercepted her and led her straight to their makeshift dinner table. "I just checked on him a minute ago. His vitals are steady. Eat. I've got him," Digg said as he left her to return to Barry.

She nodded and took a seat beside Felicity, who quickly laid out her food in front of her. Oliver handed her a couple of napkins from across the table.

"Thank you," Caitlin smiled gratefully at the both of them as she unwrapped her burger. It was a Big Belly Deluxe – the slightly healthier version, since it was in a lettuce wrap.

And then Felicity slid a generous helping of cheese fries in front of her. "I thought you might need this," she said with a conspiratorial wink.

Caitlin found herself smiling even more. She hadn't counted on her friend to be very creative when it came to switching around her caloric sources. "You thought correctly," Caitlin replied.

"Dig in," Oliver said, "before Cisco swipes your share of the fries."

"Hey," Cisco protested, "Felicity said it was okay to have hers."

"Yeah, her half not mine," Oliver teased.

"You could have snatched it back from me with your ninja skills, but you didn't," Cisco stated as he took a generous bite from his own burger.

"You could share mine," Caitlin said as she offered hers to Oliver.

"Nah, I'm good," Oliver said then whispered, "I just like to give Cisco a hard time."

"I heard that!" Cisco retorted.

"Cut it out, you two," Felicity playfully admonished. To Caitlin, she said, "I didn't know what you wanted to drink but we brought soda and bottled water. Cisco made coffee but it's still brewing."

"I'm good with water. Thanks," she replied. Felicity retrieved a bottle from one of the paper bags on the table and handed it to her.

She was left to eat peacefully after that. The chatter between her friends soothed her enough to get food down, when she hadn't before. This meal was the first thing she had eaten all day. She had finished her burger and had polished more than half of her fries when Detective West came in.

The detective was surprised by the presence of their Starling City friends but greeted everyone just the same. Felicity invited him to dinner by handing him another burger, which he gratefully accepted.

"I didn't know you guys were coming," Joe said to Felicity and Oliver as he munched on his food.

"I called them," Caitlin said. "I figured we'll be needing back-up."

"Good thing you did. We are way in over our heads," he replied as he handed Cisco a thumb drive.

"So, you think it's a meta-human?" Cisco asked as he took the drive from the detective.

Joe looked at him thoughtfully, contemplating a way to answer his question without sounding silly. But there was no way better than the straight up truth. "No, I'm beginning to think it's a ghost."

* * *

Can't help but be excited for Flash's return from hiatus! Who's with me?

Anyway, don't forget to leave your comments/reactions/reviews below. Kisses!


	4. Chapter 4

Oh my God! I never thought this would take a lot of research. Hahaha! I've tried to keep the science as plausible as possible. I hope it pays off. Anyway, you know the drill, so I'll leave you to it! Happy Reading! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 4

"A ghost _ghost_?" Felicity asked Joe as Cisco cued up the drive. They all gathered around the engineer at the room's main computer station. Even Digg, who had come out from Barry's treatment room to greet the detective, found himself wandering over.

"See for yourself. We've tried to put together Barry's timeline…"

"Wait, I thought your captain took you off the case," Caitlin interrupted.

"…Captain Singh didn't want me to take the lead but he allowed me to work on the sidelines. That drive has everything we've got so far." Joe paused as he let Cisco work the computer. He took a deep breath and faced Caitlin again but his eyes were clearly on the treatment room, "How is he?"

"Still touch and go," Caitlin sighed. She saw Joe falter before he struggled to school himself. That more than anything told her that she had to emphasize the positive, "But his vitals are holding. Have you heard from the hospital yet?"

"They've sent the results on the drive over. I haven't had a chance to look at them yet," Joe said as he remembered the email he had gotten not 10 minutes ago. He took out his phone and tapped in a few commands. "I've sent them over to you."

"Thanks," Caitlin said as she approached the other computer terminal. But before she could open the results, Cisco had launched a collage of all the video files the CCPD had pulled from their own network onto his screen.

"Okay, here's everything… which, apparently, is a whole lot of nothing," Cisco remarked as the various feeds started to cut to white noise.

"Barry clocked in at 8:15 a.m., booted up his computer, arranged a few files, tidied up his workspace, and did some data entry until 8:25 a.m. He received a short phone call then went out of the precinct at around 8:30 a.m. Then this," Joe said as he pointed out to the irregular waves of white dots amidst the gray background of the screen. "I.T. says there was a glitch in the network. Barry comes back ten minutes later with a slushie, goes back to his office, works on his computer before Caitlin found him," Joe narrated, trying to keep his voice level as his brain dredged up the fact that if not for the doctor's timely intervention, his son could have very well died.

"That glitch could open the possibility for a security breach," Felicity said, trying to refocus the detective to the task at hand.

"And the feeds could have been scrubbed," Oliver noted.

"Our techs looked," Joe said, "But they haven't found any. The firewall's intact. They haven't found any viruses or malware. There were no data dumps or any signs of illegal access."

"This is all the video you have?" Felicity pressed.

"This is all we have from the CCPD and the cameras from up and down the street. Look, we just have a skeletal I.T. crew and they double as our digital forensics division. They're a little backed up right now, trying to clean up video from feeds that weren't affected by the glitch."

"Wait, was the whole block affected or was it just CCPD?" Felicity asked. There was just something that didn't sit right with her. She knew that the Central City grid was networked wirelessly, so it mattered if this glitch was an isolated incident or not.

"Half the block was affected. We were able to get feeds from across the street but they're more than just a little bit grainy. That's why our techs are having such a hard time."

"And all these cameras record audio and video, right?"

The detective nodded.

Felicity was on a roll. "May I?" She asked Cisco, as she gestured toward his seat.

"Go ahead," the engineer said as he stood to the side and allowed her to commandeer the workstation.

"What are you thinking?" Oliver asked Felicity as her fingers flew over the wireless keyboard.

"I just want to check something," she said as she cued up the digital signal processing software she had gifted Team Flash many months ago. She fed the CCTV files to it, applied the necessary filters and waited for the read-out on her screen. "See, here," she said as she pointed to the display just as the video cut to white noise," Look."

"What are we looking at?" Digg asked.

"The waves on this depict signal characteristics – amplitude, frequency, jitter and the like. If the data was scrubbed or erased, you would expect a flat line that signifies no signal or no data. But here," she said as she pointed at the multitude of wriggly waves that crazily exploded onscreen, "you…"

"See a lot of noise," Cisco stated, "which means that the data wasn't scrubbed."

"Uh-huh, the signal was jammed," Felicity concluded. "It makes something look a lot like nothing," she said as she allowed the video files to continue playing out.

"Couldn't that have been interference from peoples' phones?" Caitlin asked.

"Not if it affects all the cameras in half a city block," Oliver surmised.

"Could be our perp's window of opportunity right there," Joe said as he contemplated the latest development.

"Did you get any feeds from analog cameras? Or at least from cameras that transmit their data through a wired network?" Felicity asked the detective. "Maybe we could get more information from those."

"That's the thing. There are a few. And this is where it gets more interesting," Joe said as he pointed at the files that held the said videos.

They watched the screens as Felicity cued up the feeds.

"See!" Joe said when the videos began to track Barry as he went out of the precinct.

"So the cameras were out of focus," Diggle said as his eyes took everything in. Everything behind Barry was blurred.

"No, look here," Joe said as he pointed at an unusually distorted image a few paces behind Barry. "I think that's our 'ghost'," he said as he emphasized his point with finger quotes.

"Couldn't that just be glare?" Diggle asked, wondering if the detective was grasping at straws.

"If it was, I don't think it could blot out an entire face – and not from different angles," Joe said. This, along with the evidence of signal jamming, was making it easier for him to tag the 'ghost' as their perp – or at the very least, a person of interest.

"I agree. This isn't just glare. It covers too much to just be an innocuous play of light. I never thought this was possible with visible light cameras," Cisco commented as he marvelled at the image. The most you could make out was that the figure was tall and in a hoodie. "This is hard enough to do at night, especially now that a lot of cameras come with anti-blooming technology," he continued as he pointed at the interesting light artifact that managed to blot out any distinguishing facial features on the figure, "It's kinda' cool to see it implemented well in daylight."

They continued to look at the feed as Barry and the ghost went out of frame.

"¡Dios mío!" Cisco exclaimed as he noticed something peculiar with the timestamps. "Felicity, can you cue up the CCPD feeds and run it alongside these new ones?"

Felicity nodded as her fingers went to work. The feeds started playing synchronously on her screen.

"What are we looking at here, Cisco?" Caitlin asked impatiently. Her brain didn't have the patience for show-and-tell – not when she had mountains of her own data waiting for her.

"See these?" Cisco said as he pointed out the timestamps on the CCPD feeds just as they cut to white noise.

"The source of the signal interference seems to be moving," Oliver concluded as he took in the snowy black screens as they cut back to clear moving images.

"Yes, and look at how it tracks," Cisco said as he circled his fingers on Joe's ghost through the other CCTV feeds.

"Oh my God!" Felicity yelped as she almost fell out of her seat, "I have to verify my calculations but the 'ghost' could be the source of the interference!"

"And that right there, tells you that whoever this is knows how to defeat multiple surveillance systems," Cisco said.

"That still doesn't mean Barry was being followed," Digg commented.

"Don't you think it's too much of a coincidence – having someone with mad counter-surveillance skills lurking about?" Cisco argued, as he looked to Oliver to settle the debate.

Oliver's brain agreed with Digg but his gut was with Joe and Cisco. "It's suspicious, yes. But we need more information." He turned to Joe then and asked, "Any eye witnesses?"

"We canvassed the area. No dice. The camera on the slushie truck has been broken for months. We got hold of a few customers but they didn't spot anything out of the ordinary. The staff identified Barry but really didn't notice anything weird with him. They did tell us it was a busy morning so they really couldn't tell for sure. The one manning the counter identified a regular customer who stood behind Barry in the line. Eddie and his team are tracking him down as we speak."

"So, what now? We don't have anything useful enough to feed Felicity's facial recognition software and we have no credible witnesses," Caitlin exasperatedly pointed out.

"Wait. We might not have enough for facial recognition but we may have just enough here for something else," Felicity said as she abruptly stood up and went over to the knapsack she had brought over from Starling City. She retrieved another portable hard drive and plugged it into the computer terminal she was working on.

She started to type several commands into the terminal and brought up the interface of a program Oliver recognized from her presentation at Queen Incorporated's product roll out meeting. "Is this…" Oliver trailed.

"Proprietary software – I know! But before you say anything, we could really use a proof-of-concept test for this subroutine and this is it. And I'm running it offline within S.T.A.R. Labs' firewalled firewall," Felicity said, as she finalized the set of commands she wanted to run. She turned to Oliver as she finished typing the last line, pleading with her eyes for his final approval even with her finger already itching to execute what Oliver knew to be the "capture sequence". She usually wouldn't have thought to ask permission because the program was her brainchild anyway, but Oliver still owned most of the company which stood to lose millions upon millions of dollars if this top-secret patentable product were to leak.

Oliver nodded, "Okay, now's a good time as any."

Felicity hit the "Enter" key at his say so and started the sequence.

"Are you for real?!" Cisco erupted once he realized what Felicity's program was doing. Felicity just smiled at him and nodded.

"Care to share with the class?" Digg huffed as the program started capturing several images of the 'ghost' walking from what footage was available to them. It was sometimes necessary to remind his friends that not everyone was a genius.

"Say hello to gait recognition software! There's a race to get this off for real-time surveillance because in theory, unlike fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition, gait doesn't require as much cooperation from the subject and biometric data is preserved even at a distance from the sensor. The downside is that recognition can easily be thrown off by different shoes, baggy clothes, a change in walking speed and the like," Felicity explained as she continued to run the video feeds through the capture sequence. "But I tweaked this baby to minimize those distortions by selecting several invariant features and using these to create a single composite silhouette."

"Okay, I get it. But how will we get an ID if there isn't a database to compare this image with?" Joe asked.

Felicity held up a finger as she fed the last of the videos through the capture sequence. A single image appeared on the screen a few seconds later, "We can use this to build a probe library. If you can give us stable and secure access to the city's CCTV feeds from traffic and street cams and assuming this system can handle petabytes of real-time data, I'll be able to scour them for any gait that matches this. We may not be able to get a name but we can track the 'ghost's' movement if any, and get to the bottom of this."

"These babies can handle that and more," Cisco said as he patted the computers on the terminal. "We could also use the probe to look through the last few days, see if Barry was really being tailed or not."

"Then we scour every second of Barry's day today and start working back from that," Oliver said. "Expand our search area and his timeline."

Cisco nodded but before anyone could voice out anything else, Joe's phone rang. "I'll have to take this," he said as he stepped away from the bank of computers.

"Do you guys have any other leads we can follow until we get access?" Oliver asked Caitlin and Cisco.

"Joe has just given me Barry's lab results," Caitlin said. "I still have to see how they line up with my own tests." She wanted to give her data another look before she stated her conclusions. As it were, things don't really look good.

"And I just got Barry's hard drive. I still have to look at it, though. Hopefully, it isn't heavily encrypted," Cisco reported.

"Eddie tracked down the witness. He's down at the station working with a sketch artist," Joe announced as he clicked off his phone. To Felicity, he said, "I'll head on over there and see about your access to our feeds. I'll keep you posted." With that, the detective took his leave, and with a last look at Barry's treatment room, he left.

After each giving an acknowledging nod toward the departing man, everybody went back to their own stations: Digg went back to Barry's room, Cisco moved to his worktable and started to look at Barry's hard drive, Caitlin headed back to the mouse lab and Felicity sat back down and started working several masking filters into the program. Oliver was left standing in front of the embankment, feeling a little bit lost – not knowing really what to do with himself. He was the muscle apparently, and there was nowhere he was needed yet.

His forefinger started rubbing against his thumb.

"Hey," Felicity said when she took his right hand in one of hers, effectively stopping his tic. She brought him down on the chair that Caitlin had vacated beside her. He looked at her then and found her giving him a knowing look.

God help him if he thought he could hide anything from her.

She rolled her seat towards him and used her free hand to reach for the other keyboard. "I need your help," she said as she squeezed his hand reassuringly and placed the keyboard directly in front of him.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, "Anything specific?"

"I need you to look through all this footage and mark anything that trips your _spidey sense_ ," she winked at him and smiled as she let go of his hand to return to her own work.

Oliver chuckled while he faced his own computer and said, "You got it."

* * *

Thanks so much for still reading! I know I've been slow to update. Anyway, there's quite a few more chapters to go here, so stay tuned! Kisses!


	5. Chapter 5

I know this took soooooo long! I'm so sorry! I've been swamped but TADA! Here it is - another chapter! So, I won't take any more of your time. You know the drill. XOXO

* * *

Chapter 5

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 7:30 pm_

 _This couldn't be._ Caitlin stared at her station, not knowing what else to do. She had compared the hospital results with her own tests. The tox screen from the hospital was clean and aside from the swab she took, so was hers. Her gut was screaming at her that she was missing something. But she had gone over everything three times. She shook her head to stop herself from obsessing over what she didn't have.

If that wasn't disheartening enough, the mice she had rescued were not faring well. The one she injected with the lowest dose of the toxin was also dead. She had opened it up and saw what amounts to the murine equivalent of multiple organ failure – unlike the ones that died at higher toxin doses regardless of route of exposure. Those mice died of asphyxiation – much like Barry would have if she hadn't been able to get to him. The other mouse she had exposed through tainted aerosol was still wheezing even after she had given it another dose of epinephrine and the one she had exposed by direct contact was barely plodding along. It all seems to point to the fact that she had only prolonged their suffering. Death seemed to be the inevitable conclusion.

When faced with that, all the rest of her conclusions – the fact that there seemed to be a dose threshold above which the toxin killed faster than most and that there was a latent period between exposure and clinical disease – seemed useless. Nevertheless, she plugged-in her necropsy findings into the disease model she had been working on ever since they had taken this case three weeks ago. And as expected, the results of the simulations were not encouraging. She'd have better luck with the Ebola virus.

She was just one step away from utter despair when her computer beeped. She had run samples of the toxin she had purified from the different organs she had collected from the mice which expired earlier. She had used an automated fluorescent assay to compare them to each other just to see if there were any differences or just anything she could exploit to arrest the toxin's effects. And it looked like the results were ready.

Caitlin took a deep breath before she dug in.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

 _Frustrated._ That was what Cisco was quickly becoming. After the almost endless search for an air-gapped computer (because he didn't want any surprises sneaking into the whole S.T.A.R. Labs network from within the confines of his firewalled firewall, particularly when a counter-surveillance expert seemed to be in their midst), and its subsequent partial dismantling (he had destroyed all communication devices and their controller chips from the dinosaur-era laptop – _it had a floppy disk drive_ – he had found in the Lab's decommissioned off-the-grid internal network!), Barry's hard drive seemed intent on not cooperating. He plugged it in but nothing happened. He tried to switch up USB ports to no avail. The drive seemed to boot up once he switched cables, though, but forever-and-a-half later, all he had to show for all that pain was a non-encrypted directory containing a couple of grocery lists, a few cat vines and a back catalog for The Forensic Examiner. In other words: nothing, nada, zilch.

"What's the problem?" Felicity asked when she saw him throw a pencil at the screen. She had finished appropriating all openly available traffic cams that were broadcasting through the city transportation office's website, and the lull of having nothing else to do left her feeling jittery. This was the first Arrow-related business they've had in months and it felt like they were all grasping at straws. She had to start working on something else before she lost it.

"I don't think there's anything here," he huffed, although what peeved him more was the fact that he felt like he wasn't helping enough.

Felicity went over to where he was stationed and began to look at his screen over his shoulder. "Wait," she said when she noticed a discrepancy between the seemingly small files and the disproportionately large chunk of disk space those consumed. "Have you tried doing a command line search for hidden files?"

"Yes," Cisco said, "but there's nothing there."

"How about hidden partitions or volumes?"

"No, not yet," he replied as he perked up. His fingers were on the task before she even blinked. They waited as the ancient system answered the query.

"Still nothing," he announced gloomily.

"Maybe it's hidden _and_ encrypted," Felicity mused.

"That could be possible," Cisco replied. Ever since he and Joe had started looking into Dr. Wells on the DL, he had strongly advised – _ahem, ordered_ – his friends to encrypt everything they touched in the guise of securing their communications from anyone looking for any metahuman data they might have. Maybe Barry did just that.

"I might have something for that," she said as she went back to her backpack and took out a brand new thumb drive. She needed a disposable drive because anything plugged into Cisco's air-gapped computer was going to have to be destroyed and discarded. She opened the package, plugged the USB device into her own station and copied a few programs from her hard drive into it.

Felicity walked back to Cisco as soon as the transfer was done and handed the device over. He plugged it in and booted it up. They waited for a couple of seconds for the interface to pop up. "Run this first," she said as she pointed to the first program on the list, "This is a test suite that will help you detect possible blocks of encrypted data on the drive. It's going to take time but after that, we can hopefully figure out his encryption system and break it."

"Or – and I know this is kind of brute-forcing it – we could just install all of these encryption recovery tools and then remount the drive again and again to see what works," Cisco suggested as he pointed to the other programs she had copied into the disc.

"Or that. Be careful though. It's tough enough to get into it now. It's going to be an even greater hell with corrupted data," she warned.

Cisco nodded his acknowledgement, as he detached Barry's hard drive and began the install.

"Maybe you should start with the open source ones. They're popular and easy to get," Felicity suggested after some thought.

"Not to mention, free," Cisco agreed, knowing Barry wouldn't drop serious cash on a proprietary version if there was a good enough one with a GNU license.

Felicity's answering chuckle was interrupted by Oliver calling her name, "Felicity."

She whirled from where she stood to see Oliver so tensed up in front of his computer screen. It looked like something got his _spidey sense_ tingling after all. "Got a tingle?"

She visibly cringed when her brain finally caught up with what her mouth had just said. Luckily, everybody seemed too absorbed with their own tasks to mind her gaffe. She went over to him anyway to see what was up.

"Look at this," he said as he stood to give her his seat.

She wasn't sure what she was looking at. It looked like Barry picking up his phone to take a call.

"There," he noted as he hit the space bar to pause the feed.

Felicity threw him a quizzical look.

He rewound the video. "Look at his face, Felicity."

The feed was nowhere near HD quality but it was enough to make out his face. "Okay, so he looks happy to be hearing from someone," she observed.

"Mmm-hmm… then there. See that? That flicker on his face – like he's suddenly worried," he pointed out.

"He has a pretty animated face," she commented, not entirely convinced of what Oliver thinks he's seeing, "It's just Barry being Barry."

"No, something isn't right. Look at his face again," he said adamantly.

Felicity gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, if there was something to catch here, Oliver's eagle eyes would. She went through the footage frame-by-frame. And sure enough, there was this split second when Barry stiffens and his eyes visibly widen. She wouldn't have caught it if Oliver hadn't pointed it out. But then again, that reaction, in and of itself, could mean anything.

"Okay, where are you going with this?" She asked him, deciding to follow his gut on this despite her doubts.

"I don't know. It wouldn't hurt to look at his phone, though," he answered. And then he added, "But that's not all. I went through the footage twice. Look at him when he gets back to his lab."

Felicity continued watching. When Barry shuffled back into the frame, it was like he was wearing a mask. The blank look on his face was more telling to Felicity than anything else. His eyes were so flat that Barry looked there but _not exactly_ there. _Just like with Thea before Tommy kept her from killing Sara_ , she thought, remembering that damn video of Malcolm Merlyn's almost botched plan to murder the Canary.

Oliver was thinking the same thing when he spoke again, "We've seen that before. I think there's a good chance he'd been drugged. And…"

"That's easy enough to check with Caitlin," she said, not intending to interrupt him, but doing so in her bid to rid her mind of the unpleasant memories. "I'm sorry. Please continue," she apologized when Oliver pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows at her.

"…and then he does this," he said as he resumed the feed's frame-by-frame playback.

She watched Barry plug something – a thumb drive or dongle of some sort – into his computer with his right hand. It was a small enough movement that could easily have been overlooked, especially if the viewer had been focused on Barry setting down his slushie and opening a file folder with his other hand. The action wouldn't have been considered suspicious under more normal circumstances but it couldn't hurt to be more thorough. She would rather err on the side of due diligence.

"All right," Felicity said as she laid her hand over his and met his eyes, "This could be something."

"Yahtzee!" Cisco exclaimed, as he threw both of his arms up in triumph. He had discovered a hidden encrypted volume.

"You have Barry's key?" Felicity asked as she swiveled her head to face him.

His triumph, it seemed, was short-lived. Cisco's face fell. And then it lighted up again when he remembered the jumbled alphanumeric string littered with special characters that Barry had sent him a few days back. He may have mistaken it for a corrupted text then, but hey, it was at least 20 characters long – just the right length for a decryption key. "He may have given me a break-in-case-of-emergency key," he said as he retrieved the message from his phone and started typing it on the prompt.

"Great! When you're done, I need you to help me scour the CCPD network for crashers," she said to Cisco, who bobbed his head in acknowledgement. Then she turned to Oliver, "And you need to go find Caitlin and ask her where Barry's phone is."

Oliver gave her a quick nod then made his way to Caitlin's lab at the other far end of the cortex.

Caitlin was standing right inside with her back to him, so he rapped his knuckles against her door frame to announce his presence. That seemed to jolt her into facing him. He was just about to speak when the fear in her eyes made him stop dead in his tracks.

"He's going to die," Caitlin said – her voice laced with dejected disbelief, "And I don't know how to save him."

xxxxXXXXxxxx

John Diggle still couldn't wrap his head around this whole superpower thing but this was simple enough to relate to. It was always difficult when someone you know goes down – harder still when he's a friend. It just occurred to him that with Barry's superhealing in the mix, this could be the first time Caitlin and Cisco were facing having Barry in any kind of imminent mortal danger because of it. He sighed. He was just glad they asked for help and that he, Oliver and Felicity could give it.

He had just finished replacing one of Barry's IV's when he noticed some red bumps on the kid's neck. It was close enough to his hairline that some of the bumps have been obscured. On closer inspection, however, those which were plainly visible featured a row of what looked to be fine barbs protruding from his skin. He wouldn't pretend to know what those were so he refrained from touching them. He knew, though, to have Caitlin check them out and soon. They couldn't afford him spiking a fever.

After a quick check of Barry's vitals, he left the treatment room in search of the good doctor.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Caitlin knew that she was on the verge of becoming overly dramatic – heck, her hands were trembling – but sheer terror had driven her past any sense of equanimity. The results flashing ominously on her tablet's screen told her just how sinister the toxin was and that there was no feasible way, in her knowledge, of stopping it. Everything pointed to a fatal endgame. All she was really doing was prolonging the inevitable.

"Whoa, where is this coming from?" Oliver asked as he approached her.

"I've figured out how the toxin kills and it's not pretty," she rambled as she began to frantically pace in front of him. "I haven't seen anything like this before. It's like setting off a ticking bomb. It won't quit. It just won't. It mutates. It evolves. It's killing him now as we speak…"

"Hey, hey, slow down," he interrupted as he caught her by the shoulders. He had never seen Caitlin as distraught as she was now. He could feel her shaking. "You've kept him alive all this time," he said, hoping to placate her.

"Yes, but not for much longer!" She exclaimed then sighed, "I don't know what else to do."

The anguish in her voice was plain. "You're not alone in this," he said as he tried to inject whatever strength he could into Caitlin's defeated form. "Look, I may not be a genius but Cisco and Felicity are. And whatever you guys need, John and I are also here to help. So show us what you've found so we could find another way," he said. He may have shaken her a little but that prompted her to look at him. "We're going to find another way." It wasn't exactly a promise but it would have to do.

She was stirred by the firmness in Oliver's voice. He was telling her that he believed enough for the both of them for Barry's sake. She took a deep breath. Okay, she could get behind that. She was about to make a reply but it died in her throat when Digg's voice came booming from the door, "Caitlin, you have to see this."

* * *

Can I just say how much Olicity killed me last night in that AWESOME Legends of Today crossover? I still can't stop squeeing! Oh, and don't hesitate to leave your comments/reviews/faves/follows below! They're always welcome and thoroughly appreciated! Kisses!


	6. Chapter 6

Feels good to have another chapter up! Enjoy! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 6

 _Central City Police Department, 7:45pm_

"What do you have so far?" Joe asked as he met Eddie at the precinct. He had taken longer than expected – Friday night rush hour and all.

"Robert Sheldon, 20, art student. Piece of work, that guy," the younger detective answered while pointing to the carefully disheveled dude inside the room marked Interview 1. "But he checks out. Hey, do you know if Barry has been seeing anyone lately?" Eddie knew that he would've known straight from Iris if it had been true, but he just wanted to cover all the bases.

Joe raised an eyebrow at the wholly unexpected and seemingly irrelevant question, "And this is important how?"

His partner whipped out his notepad and began to read from it, "He"– Eddie said as he tilted his head towards their witness – "said that, and I quote: 'a hot chick in a hoodie came and planted a big one' end quote, on Barry while he was in line to buy a slushie. And also says that, and again, I am quoting him on this: 'they were so into it that I really wanted to scream at them to get a room.' "

This time both of Joe's eyebrows shot up, "Any chance we got a description of the 'hot chick?' "

"5'10-5'11, redhead, prefers smaragdine" – _because, yeah, like that really helps_ – "for lipstick," Eddie reported as he stashed his notebook. "Guess that's a no on a name?" he asked at Joe's dumbfounded expression.

"You guessed right," the senior detective answered since he couldn't recall Barry talking about – much less introducing him to – a red-headed woman with a penchant for hoodies and fancy cosmetics. "What's he still doing here?"

"He's working on a sketch right now. Had to stop him from murdering our artist for not getting it right." And since he was too tired to keep everything in check, he had accompanied his obvious disdain with an eye roll even Cisco would envy.

"Looks like we got lucky then," Joe commented.

"I hope so. With him, we could just as likely get a scribble of lines and have him call it art," Eddie snarkily replied.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 7:50 pm_

"Crimson Kiss?" Felicity wondered aloud as the decryption program revealed the one and only folder within the hidden volume. She had wandered back over to Cisco's station as soon as Oliver left, but brought the wireless keyboard with her. She had projected a magnified view of her station's screen into the middle of the room using the Labs' new holographic projection system. She didn't really need it for its 3D depiction – she just thought to give it a spin since her engineering genius of a friend couldn't stop talking about it during dinner.

"It's what we've been calling this whole case – The Mystery of the Crimson Kiss," Cisco supplied with a flourish. He'd been working on a draft for The Chronicles of Cisco – his heretofore obscure Tumblr blog that will someday be immortalized for its sheer awesomeness.

Felicity looked unimpressed.

"You don't like it?" he asked as he ran a quick virus scan of the contents. His meta nomenclature was usually a hit with her. "It seemed appropriate enough then with the color of the rash on the victims' lips."

She shrugged.

"It _is_ provisional," he pandered as they waited for the scan to finish. "Things could still change."

"This hologram system is _the_ shit though," Felicity commended as she observed just how smoothly the system ran. The graphics were crisp, the transitions fluid. "Seriously, you should pitch this to Oliver!" she continued as she brought up a map of the whole CCPD network on her screen.

Cisco was tickled pink. Anything expletive-laden was high praise indeed from Felicity Smoak. "You still have to see this," he said as he eagerly hopped over to the main console and pressed a few keys. A floating interface appeared in front of Felicity. "Let go of your keyboard and do what you please with the display."

Felicity did as she was told and started toggling the map she had brought up in mid-air. Her eyes widened when the map followed her finger. "You made it air-touch interactive!" she exclaimed, her eyes brightening with both wonder and excitement.

"Yeah," he admitted, "but I still have to incorporate a track-and-seek system for other inputs – that way you won't have to keep going back to the same area for the keyboard." Cisco then regaled her with the nitty-gritty of setting up infrared sensors and ultrasound phased array transducers.

It wasn't exactly her area of expertise but she understood enough to keep pace. _Ray would've loved this._ The unbidden thought sobered her instantly. It had been months since his death and yet she still couldn't believe it. His loss had been abrupt. And now, it's Barry who's… she didn't even want to think about it.

"It will be cooler though if this could work with haptic feedback at a longer range," Cisco continued, unaware of Felicity's dipping mood.

"Yeah," she answered distractedly. "You won't mind if I continue working with this, though, would you?" she asked, with an apologetic smile on her face, as she picked up the wireless keyboard again. It was always faster working with the stuff you know.

"Of course not," he answered, as he switched the main input back to the keyboard. "It's still faster anyway," he added as he made his way back to his laptop beside her. "Looks like we're halfway through the scan… Where are you with the CCPD?"

"I've gone through the backdoor and deployed my sniffers," she replied, although she was downright conflicted on whether she wanted to find something or not. "We'll see what these babies find. They'll start reporting soon and I'll need your help sorting through all that data."

Digg, Caitlin and Oliver passed through the cortex before Cisco could answer in the affirmative. The look on their faces had the both of them scurrying after the trio into Barry's treatment room.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"What do we have here?" Caitlin asked Digg as she entered.

Digg hurried over to Barry's bedside and showed her what he had found, "This. I didn't see it until just a couple of minutes ago."

"Could you get the lights, please?" she requested to no one in particular. She was set on having a look at the patch of red bumps on Barry's neck. Someone had refocused the overhead light and she was slightly relieved that the bumps were markedly different from the earlier rash that had erupted on and had already cleared from his lips. That gave her hope that this wasn't another entry site for the toxin. "Guys, I need you to turn him a bit. Be careful with his airway," she said as she went over to the shelves at the far side of the room and started gathering supplies. "Felicity, could you please bring that trolley over here?"

Felicity wheeled the trolley over to her and asked, "What else do you need?"

"I need you to get a set of glass slides and a couple of micro test tubes from that drawer there. When you're done, please ready the microscope on the table over there," Caitlin instructed as she retrieved a medical loupe and a UV lamp from the shelf. She continued heaping a number of supplies on the trolley as Felicity did as she bade. Once she was satisfied that she had everything she needed, she moved the cart back to Barry's bedside.

The guys had already turned him on his side with Oliver holding Barry securely in position so he won't roll back down on the bed. Cisco was making sure that Barry's breathing tube was in place.

Digg got her a stool to sit on. "How do you want to do this?" he asked as he assessed the contents of the trolley.

"I want to get a closer look first before we do anything else," she said as she finished testing the UV lamp and the medical loupe. "Felicity, are you done with the microscope?"

"Uh-huh," the blonde answered.

"Thanks. I need you to kill all the lights when I say so," she said as she attached the shield on the UV lamp. The shield would keep the rays directed at Barry and in the process, protect everybody else from the harsh light.

"Okay."

"Hopefully, we don't see anything fluoresce. The toxin glows red under UV light," she explained as she directed the lamp towards Barry. "Okay," she said as all her friends held their collective breath, "kill the lights."

The room went dark at her say so, and the eerie violet glow filled the room.

Three beats passed.

 _Nothing._

She heard everybody exhale when she asked Felicity to turn the lights back on.

With that done, she donned a disposable paper gown, a surgical mask, the medical loupe and a pair of latex gloves. She looked to Digg to snap down the loupe on its frame before she took a seat on the stool and proceeded to examine the bumps. There were peculiar looking barbs sticking out from most of them. The one closest to her looked like a bee stinger with its venom sac intact. She probed the area, taking care not to disturb the barbs or prick herself. When it looked like she had to remove the spines to see if any of the wounds had festered, she said "Digg, open a minor set with a specimen kit. Felicity has the slides and the micro test tubes."

He donned a pair of gloves and did as Caitlin asked. He quickly laid out the surgical set on another equipment table and brought it to her side. "Ready when you are," he said.

"Scalpel," she said as she extended her palm for the instrument. Digg complied quickly. She used the blunt edge of her knife to tease the first spur out of Barry's skin. She felt a little resistance so she approached it from different angles until she felt it give. "I need another blade," she said as she felt the barb slide out. It stood precariously at the edge of her knife. She quickly transferred it to the other blade Digg had handed over. "Put this carefully on the slide," she said as she handed back the specimen to her assistant. "Felicity, you know what to do with that slide, right?" she asked as she went back to her task.

"I've got it," Felicity said as she took the slide by the edge, careful not to disturb the rest of the equipment on the table.

"Digg, a tube please," Caitlin asked as she took another one out. She filled the tube with a couple more before she looked up at Oliver and Cisco. "You guys good?" she asked as she probed the wounds. No pus, blood or serous fluid came out. She took that as a good sign.

"Yeah, no problem here," Oliver said as he kept Barry steady.

"Barry's holding up. Vitals are fine," Cisco reported.

Caitlin nodded her acknowledgement and continued to scrape out the barbs. She asked for another plastic test tube after she had taken out the tenth one. "Felicity, this first one is for chemical analysis," she said as she handed the tube to Digg. "The next one is for DNA."

It took her another five minutes to dig out the remaining ten. "We're done!" she announced as she capped the second tube and handed it to Digg. She then took a peanut sponge with a pair of oval forceps, dipped it in antiseptic and swabbed the wounds. "You can turn him on his back now," she called to Oliver and Cisco as she proceeded to remove her gloves, the loupe and her gown. She left the men to clean up and hurried over to Felicity to see the specimen under the microscope.

"Specimen's mounted," Felicity said. "I'll have your chemical data in a few minutes," she added as she dashed off to set-up the real-time PCR thermocycler on the adjacent work bench. They needed whatever DNA they could get off those barbs. It was a Hail Mary but it was better than nothing.

Caitlin took a look at the microscope. There were a few human epidermal cells on the background, but what she thought was a bee stinger, on closer inspection looked a lot more like a leaf trichome. She projected the image to the screen.

"What are those?" Cisco pondered aloud.

"I think they're leaf trichomes," Caitlin replied. "Maybe Barry brushed against something somewhere and that could give us another lead to follow. I'll run this against our botanical database to see if anything matches," she said as she retrieved her tablet from the table and ran the necessary program.

"Maybe you should tell everyone what you've found so far – just so everyone is on the same page," Oliver reminded her as he and Digg had finally finished cleaning up. Time was tight and the toxin was certainly not going to stop wreaking havoc on Barry.

Oliver's serious tone prompted everyone to gather around her.

Caitlin took a deep breath. _Here goes nothing._

* * *

Don't forget to comment/review! Those who do usually get a peek at the next chapter! Kisses! :)


	7. Chapter 7

What? Another chapter so quickly? You got that right! :) I wanna finish this so bad, I hope I can keep this pace up! Happy reading! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 7

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 8:10 pm_

Caitlin brought up the video she kept of the mice she had experimented on before she started. "Okay, so I exposed a number of mice to the toxin a week ago. They were okay until today. Then this happened," she narrated as she showed them the segment when the mice started dying a few hours ago. "Most of the mice died within a two-hour timeframe. On necropsy, cause of death was asphyxia due to respiratory muscle spasm secondary to anaphylactic shock. I found no trace of the toxin anywhere else except for the primary exposure sites and the blood but there were antibodies present."

"It looks as if someone was pulling an invisible trigger on them," Felicity commented as all of them continued to watch the mice fall one after the other.

 _She doesn't know just how right she is_ , Caitlin thought but instead, she continued relaying her results, "I was able to rescue the ones I've exposed to the lowest concentration of the toxin but one already died. I've just opened it up and found traces of the toxin in all of its organs – brain, lungs, liver, kidneys. Cause of death was multiple organ failure. I've extracted the toxin from the different sites and compared them for any changes. I used a FRET ligand-binding assay to investigate if there are differences between the native toxin and the toxin that was allowed to work on the mouse for a longer period of time. I designed the assay to detect changes in the samples' ability to bind to the antibodies I've found on the mice that expired earlier.

"So, basically if the assay glows, then the antibody wasn't able to bind the toxin and means that the toxin has since changed from its original conformation. This is what I found," she said as she flashed her results. The assay was marked based on the source organ of the toxin and all of it, except for the ones marked primary site, glowed to some extent.

"We can infer from this that either each organ processes the toxin differently or that the changes happen serially as the toxin travels through the body via the blood. And going back to what Felicity said, I thought the same thing. There must have been a trigger of some sort – a molecular one that changes an inert protein into a deadly toxin that kills uniformly above a certain concentration threshold regardless of route of exposure. So, I looked further and studied the protein conformations of the toxin on the original swab and the ones I've taken from the rash vesicles. It seems that the toxin becomes 'primed' when immune cells in the body first attack it. These immune cells try to destroy the toxin by releasing chemicals that unfortunately injure the healthy skin cells instead – hence the nasty rash.

"And since the first line of cells didn't work, the body calls up several other types of immune cells to try and stop the toxin. That's when all hell breaks loose. The binding of other immune cells triggers a conformational or shape change that 'weaponizes' the toxin, exposing a domain that acts like an anaphylatoxin similar to but infinitely more potent than _araD_ – the causative agent of extreme peanut allergies. So, even if you didn't have an existing allergic condition, this can kill you just the same because it can activate all the downstream effectors of the allergic cascade. If you happen to have one, it kills even faster."

"This explains why the other businessmen died even if they didn't have any allergies like the alderman," Cisco said, as he reviewed the details of the case in his head.

"And also explains why Barry had a faster reaction because of his hyperactive immune system," Digg said.

"So you're saying that if the toxin acts like those…" Felicity mused then asked Oliver, "What do you call those Russian dolls that pop out of each other?"

"Matryoshka dolls," Oliver supplied.

"So if this toxin works like a Matryoshka doll," Felicity continued, "it could just keep popping out nasty little buggers until it kills its victim?"

"Not quite, but close enough," Caitlin nodded. "Instead of popping out, I think it continues to shed only the top layers where the antibodies and cells bind while it keeps the base or core intact. And it kills by turning our immune system against us. So our biggest problem right now is if the best our immune system can do is trigger change upon change upon change into deadlier and deadlier subforms, I don't know what else we can use to stop this toxin from doing its job so well. And the longer we wait…" she trailed, as everyone else reached the same sinister conclusion on their own.

"So, in English, good news: we now know how the toxin works. Bad news: we're on a clock with nothing to fight it," Oliver summarized. He can now understand the depth of Caitlin's fear and frustration. And here he thought –

"…all was sunny and bright in Central City," Oliver heard Felicity mutter under her breathy sigh, unaware that she was giving voice to his unspoken comment.

There was a moment of tense silence as everybody processed the information.

The beeping from the mass spectrometer prompted Felicity to her feet. On the way over to retrieve the results, she asked, "What sort of timeline do we have?"

Caitlin sighed as she relayed more bad news. "If we take the assay like a timeline of serial changes, it means that the toxin attacks the skin first, then the lungs, the digestive system and the brain, before it trashes the kidneys. Barry threw up bile hours ago, so now we're basically trying to stop it from getting to his brain. I've placed him in a medically induced coma, plus Digg and I have been infusing him with cold IV solutions to slow his metabolism down. But the fact that we found those bumps just now means that his immune system may have slowed but it's still active enough to do some damage."

"We may have another problem," Felicity commented as she walked back over to Caitlin.

 _Really? Really?!_ Caitlin's unspoken rant was threatening to spill from her mouth as she took the paper Felicity handed to her.

"Those barbs contained scopolamine," Felicity reported to the rest while Caitlin mentally ran the calculations in her head. Scopolamine had an elimination half-life of roughly 2.8 to 6.2 hours. With Barry's hypermetabolism, that could have been cut down to about an hour or less.

"Barry was roofied?" Cisco exclaimed as he recognized the chemical from the list of the world's scariest drugs. Well, 'zombified' _w_ as a more accurate term since they were talking about a scary zombie drug here, but he wasn't about to mince words.

"About that, we found something in the security footage that indicates that Barry may have been drugged," Oliver added. He knew very well just what scopolamine can do. It's a neurotransmitter that's isolated from the South American borrachero tree, or its distant cousin, the votura plant and can make someone highly susceptible to suggestion.

"His toxicology reports from the hospital and here were both clean," Caitlin said as her brows furrowed. "His body could have metabolized it by the time we got a sample of his blood and urine in the ER."

"Does this affect him now in any way?" Digg asked.

"If he's cleared it by now, which I think he has" – because there were no signs and symptoms she could attribute to the drug – "there are no immediate concerns except figuring out the why," she answered.

"Then I think our time will be better served by focusing on Barry right now," Digg concluded.

Caitlin agreed with him, but then that was about all she had left. She tried everything she had but all her experiments and simulations have failed. "I've never seen anything like this before. All my models predict the same doomsday scenario. I don't know what else to do," she grumbled as her frustration surfaced.

"Wait," Digg said, "what if we flush it out? You asked me to be on stand-by for dialysis."

" _That_ was if Barry's kidneys stopped working properly because of his unstable cardiovascular status and before I knew the toxin could cross the blood-brain barrier. Now, we know it's small enough to pass through any filtration system in the human body and any of the dialysis membranes I know," she huffed as she sat herself down on the work bench.

"How about we improvise with my nanofilters?" Cisco suggested.

Caitlin had already attempted that – and failed. "The nanopores are too small," she countered as her eyes began to well up again.

"So, if we can't filter it out, can't we find a way to contain it instead?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah, like coat it or something so it couldn't work its mojo," Cisco seconded.

"I tried that with agglutinating antibodies I've manufactured from the original samples. These antibodies signal others like it to coat the toxin and clump them together so the body could flush it out," Caitlin said as she showed the images she had captured with an atomic force microscope. "But before the antibodies could adequately coat the toxin, the toxin changes its conformation and destroys the coating," she said as her tears began to fall. "I'm so sorry. I don't mean to be like this," she sniffled. She hated herself right now because she knew crying wasn't helping Barry one bit.

Felicity crossed to her and sat beside her. Caitlin leaned against her friend. She needed all the help she could get.

Digg silently passed his hankie to her.

Caitlin had to fight another wave of tears when she accepted it – _because yes, Digg was the kind of guy to have a hankie in his pocket – just like Barry,_ she thought _._ "Thanks," she said as she began wiping her eyes with it.

"What do you need to make this work, Caitlin?" Oliver asked after giving her a few seconds to recover. This was way more complicated than chewing a couple of leaves and washing it down with water. He kind of missed the simplicity of his herbs.

"Basically something that bolts together to cage the toxin faster than it can change its shape," Caitlin responded, "and does it without binding too much of the protein to trigger the change in the first place."

Felicity perked up and started talking with her hands. "I think we just might have something," she said as she commandeered Caitlin's tablet and looked something up in her private server within S.T.A.R. Labs. That encrypted server made it easier for her to send big files to Cisco, as well as serve as her off-site data dump.

Cisco's eyes widened as he began snapping his fingers. "You mean Ray's nanotech?" he asked as it clicked.

Felicity looked up from the tablet, surprised that he knew about it but she nodded her head anyway.

Cisco scampered from the room to retrieve the package Ray had sent him just before he died. "You mean this?" he asked as he returned and produced two vials of the stuff.

Felicity wanted to know how he got it but it wasn't important right then. Instead, she took the vials from Cisco and gave it, together with the tablet showing Ray's notes, to Caitlin, "I know it's experimental, but it's better than nothing."

"This hasn't even been tried on an animal before," Caitlin remarked as she scanned the document.

"Officially, it hasn't but unofficially, it has. Well, on a human to be more exact because I kinda' used a vial of it on Ray… illegally… to clear a clot in his brain when we were given the choice between brain damage and sudden death," Felicity confessed, aware that this potentially life-saving technology could be yanked from production because she and Ray had circumvented several mandatory steps in the FDA approval process. They promised each other to keep it a secret but this could potentially save another life now, so she sent a silent apology to Ray wherever he was.

"And?" the doctor prompted.

"He lived. He did have a seizure but he lived," Felicity answered as she jumped down from her perch.

"This could work. We just have to reconfigure it to track our toxin instead of platelets," Caitlin said as she read more of Ray's remarks.

"I could help you with that," Cisco volunteered. "Ray gave me a copy of the source code just before he uhm…," he stuttered, "uh... He wanted me to look it over and see if I could instruct the units to self-assemble into discrete forms."

"Okay," Caitlin approved as she marched towards Barry and started to give him a quick check. This was only going to work if she could keep him alive until they were ready to implement this potential cure.

Cisco had already gone back to his station to retrieve the code and start cracking when Digg asked, "Would two vials be enough?" _If Felicity used a vial for one clot then surely, they were on the short side of things,_ he thought.

"We'll have to make do with four," he heard Felicity say as she retrieved two more vials from his – well, Team Arrow's – med kit. "These are the last four of these babies. Applied Sciences suspended production pending the execution of Ray's estate."

"We're going to have to get creative then," Caitlin said as she laid her palm gently, almost longingly, against Barry's chest, comforting herself with the reassuring beat of his heart. Galvanized with renewed hope, she looked at Digg, "Come with me. We're going shopping in the Biomedical Wing."

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Oliver took over Barry's care when Digg left with Caitlin, while Felicity finished extracting DNA from the barbs they had gotten out of their friend's neck.

 _You better stay alive, buddy,_ he thought as he replaced Barry's IV with a new bag of cold saline. _There are people here who need you – namely one Dr. Caitlin Snow._ He strongly suspected that there were deeper feelings on her part where his speedster friend was concerned. _You better not break her heart because Felicity is going to come after you. She'll find a way, I tell you - even go to hell and back. And you know, where Felicity goes, I follow. So you better damn well keep breathing,_ he silently threatened his patient, _because I don't want to have to beat you up after this!_

Oliver shook his head because he knew he was talking to himself and not making a lick of sense. He was beside himself with anger and guilt and fear, and heaping it on anyone else was not productive in any way. He was angry at the world because he didn't want this shit to keep touching anyone he cared about. And he was being eaten up with guilt because Barry was like a brother to him – the kid brother who never ceases to annoy but for whom he would do everything to protect. But mostly, he was scared shitless because he didn't think he could handle losing another part of his family again. He expelled a deep breath. His brooding wasn't helping. He focused instead on regulating the IV's drip rate.

He was just about done when he felt Felicity hug him from behind. It was a wordless plea for comfort – one that he realized he needed as well – so he turned within the circle of her arms. He hugged her closer to him as he felt her fingers rub small circles against his chest, right over his heart. He sighed and pressed closer to her. "Hi," he said as he nuzzled her hair.

Felicity had sensed the tension radiating from Oliver. She felt it too – the nerves, the uncertainty, the fear, and the guilt – because she had wished for something more than the mundane, more than the everyday. When she had asked Oliver all those weeks ago if life without the Arrow would be enough for him, she wasn't asking because she wanted him to quit – no. She had asked because she was terrified that he might quit altogether and that it would have been a deal breaker for her. So when he himself was uncertain, she had given a sigh of relief. _But now?_ She huffed. _Thanks, but no thanks_.

"Hi," she responded, as she felt him squeeze her nape. She relaxed and placed a kiss on the vee of his neck. And because she couldn't help it, she burrowed further into the warmth of his chest. "I hope this works," she sighed, "I hope it really does."

He kissed her forehead then and held her tighter to him as he felt the uncertainty tremble through her. "It will," he whispered into her hair, "It must."

They stood there, seeking and giving comfort in each other's arms until they were jolted apart by her program's urgent alarm.

"Felicity!" they heard Cisco bellow from the cortex, "I think we just found the reason why Barry got drugged!"

* * *

Feel free to drop some love or comments/reviews/favs/follows below! :) Kisses!


	8. Chapter 8

A new chapter just in time for the holidays! I hope you enjoy! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 8

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 8:30 pm_

Felicity and Oliver scrambled over to the cortex at Cisco's frantic holler.

"What is it?" Oliver asked as Cisco hurriedly passed the wireless keyboard to Felicity.

"It looks like Barry has gone further on this case than we thought," the engineer said as he indicated the ancient laptop behind him with his thumb. "And then, there's that," he stated as he pointed at the hologram that was showing warning boxes that were repeatedly screaming _ALERT!_

Felicity quickly looked over the information from her sniffers as she took her seat in front of the main console. Her sniffers were running real-time and they were reporting aberrant network activity. "I think we have a live one," she said as her fingers started working her keyboard. Several windows began to pop-up all over the holographic display as she started calling up her own arsenal. _If this was in any way related to Barry's attack_ , she thought, _whoever this was better watch it_.

"What do you need?" Cisco asked, itching to join in the action.

"I don't know how long this payload has been here so I need you to start scouring all the memory dumps and hibernation files you could get your hands on," Felicity said as she continued to work. Then to Oliver, she said, "Oliver, honey, I need you to call Detective West."

* * *

 _Central City Police Department, 8:30pm_

Joe had just come back to his desk after speaking with Captain Singh about giving provisional network access to S.T.A.R. Labs. The captain was hesitant about hiring out the critical parts of the investigation when one of their own was involved. He had made a case for expediency and the captain had reluctantly agreed, but limited it to on-site access. He had been about to call Cisco when Eddie walked by his desk.

"I asked them to run it twice," Eddie grumbled as he took a seat in front of his desk. "No hits."

Joe shook his head as he smooshed his hand on his face. He sure as hell thought their luck was turning. After their witness had rendered a life-like image of a possible person of interest, he hoped that they would get a hit with facial recognition. _This case would try even the patience of a saint._ He sighed. Well maybe, his _other_ team can work this and get something they could use.

"All databases?" the senior detective asked.

Eddie nodded. "I've even called in a favor to check the DMV database on the down-low. This woman, whoever she is, doesn't have a record, doesn't have a driver's license – she's either dead or a ghost," he groaned as he dragged himself back up. "I'll put out a BOLO. See if something turns up."

Joe nodded his head and reached the phone Cisco had urged him to use whenever he needed Team Flash. _Time to call in the cavalry._

* * *

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 8:33 pm_

"Catch!" Cisco said as he threw his phone to Oliver. It was his version of the Arrow phone. Joe had a similar encrypted unit with him.

Oliver easily snatched the phone in mid-air with his right hand. But before he could even do anything with it, the phone started to ring. It was the detective. He quickly swiped his thumb against the screen to take the call.

"Cisco," the detective said by way of greeting.

"No, Detective. It's Oliver. We –"

"Is everything okay?" Joe immediately asked, cutting off Oliver in the process. He had heard alarms in the background.

"Barry's fine but we have a situation," Oliver said, "I'm putting you on speaker." He then placed the phone between Felicity and Cisco – both of whom were busy unleashing their fingers on their respective keyboards.

"Detective," Felicity said, "I'm sorry I had to break into your network before you gave me access, but it had to be done. I just caught the tail-end of an executable file calling home," her voice was taut and uneven. She had since turned off the grating alarm but there was still a lot to be done.

"Wait, what?"

"Joe, your network has been breached after all. We need more time to know just how much of it was compromised," Cisco butted in, knowing how difficult it could be for Felicity to simplify technical jargon while trying to concentrate on coding on the fly. "But for now, you're going to have to hold all chatter on this network or divert it to another more secure one."

At this, they heard Joe called Eddie back into his office to hold the BOLO.

"We may have to go low-tech on this," Felicity commented as she recognized the makings of a possible shadow network within the CCPD's existing infrastructure. She returned to the network map she had on the screen earlier and promptly reviewed it for possible alternatives. "It looks like you have a separate fax line. You can use that temporarily," she concluded before she went on to relay her contact information.

"Okay, I'll tell our techs to pull the plug –"

"No!" Both Cisco and Felicity exclaimed. Felicity then hurriedly interjected as she typed line upon line of code, "If you do that, we might alert the intruder that something's up. I'd rather lull him into a false sense of security."

"Let me talk to your techs later," Cisco said as he continued to acquire memory dumps from the infected network, "I'll walk them through sandboxing this threat."

"Until then, Oliver will update you with what we have so far," Felicity said as she passed the phone back to Oliver and quickly returned to her screen.

"Detective," Oliver said as he switched off the speaker function.

"Wait, hold on," Joe said as he spoke to whom Oliver assumed was his partner. The detective quickly apprised Eddie of the situation and gave additional directions on how to issue the BOLO and a warning to keep communications on this case to a minimum. When that was done, Joe asked, "So, what's new?"

Oliver relayed all their new findings: the possibility that Barry had been drugged with scopolamine, the cure Caitlin is working on and the data on Barry's hard drive that they haven't even touched. It was only when Joe was convinced he was fully caught up on those that Oliver ventured to ask him about one more thing, "Have you seen Barry's phone? I mean, could it have been left in his lab when he collapsed? It could make filling in the blanks in his timeline a lot easier." He may have forgotten to ask Caitlin but it wouldn't hurt to put the same question to Joe.

He heard a rustling of paper before the detective spoke again, "It's not on the evidence log, but I'll go check his lab again. Anyway, the witness was able to provide us with a sketch. I'm faxing it over to you guys right now."

"Okay," Oliver said before he tapped Felicity's shoulder and gestured that he needed her phone. At her inquiring frown, he mouthed the word "fax". That had her unlocking her phone and calling up her fax service app.

Joe started to recap his and Eddie's progress, "The sketch was made by the witness himself – the kid prides himself as being an artist and said he wouldn't be able to forget a face like that. It's a pretty clear sketch but we didn't get any hits from our databases…"

"Uh-huh," Oliver said as Felicity handed him her phone. "Wait, I just got it," he muttered as he opened the incoming message. The woman in the drawing was stunning and looked oddly familiar. "Okay, go on," he said as he forwarded it to his own inbox.

"The kid says that he saw this woman approach Barry while he was in line to get his slushie," Joe continued. "She's a redhead about 5'10-5'11" tall, and wore a dark hoodie."

"Like our ghost," Oliver said as he proceeded to walk back to Barry's treatment room.

"Uh-huh," the older man agreed, then asked, "Has Barry told you anything about seeing someone?"

Oliver's eyebrows rose. _He was probably the last person who Barry would have spoken to about that._ "No, why?"

"The witness said this woman and Barry apparently shared a kiss."

"So, he knew her?"

"We think so, but I never really thought Barry would go for edgier girls."

"How do you mean?" Oliver asked, even as he reviewed what he knew of Barry's history with women – namely Iris, Felicity and he suspected, Caitlin as well. _Joe may be on to something_ , he thought. When it came to women, Barry tended towards the conventionally pretty – not tall exotic redheads.

"Nah, I just couldn't see him going for a woman who puts some weird green lipstick on when it's not even close to Halloween," Joe said in an offhand manner.

At that statement, Oliver was hit by a stronger feeling of déjà vu. He knew in his gut that he had seen the woman before. "So Cisco had been right on the bucket from day one – the perp's a woman with a deadly kiss," he remarked as he tried to place her in his memory.

"Looks like it," Joe huffed. "Anyway, I was hoping you guys can run it. See if you can match the face to a name. In the meantime, I'm asking CCPD Vice about that drug before I head up to Barry's lab and see about his phone."

"Okay, I'll let you get to it. Uhm, and Felicity's telling me tell you _not_ to touch Barry's computer," Oliver said as he relayed what Felicity was shouting from the cortex.

"Roger. Out," came the detective's abrupt and terminal reply before the call clicked off.

* * *

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Biomedical Wing, 8:35 pm_

S.T.A.R. Labs' Biomedical Division had its own sublevel that housed fully equipped labs and procedure rooms. Caitlin remembered that one of their most active projects back then involved experiments in the transplantation of lab-grown organs – hearts, kidneys, livers and skin – into non-human primates. That had her dragging Digg to the said wing because for what she wanted to achieve with this cure, she needed special equipment that she didn't have in the treatment room.

"What are we looking for?" Digg asked as Caitlin handed him a pushcart. They had finally reached their destination after roughly ten minutes of walking. They were in the division's own supply kiosk – all five thousand-square feet of shelf upon shelf of medical supplies and equipment.

"Anything we would need to perform a field dialysis," Caitlin answered as she began to search the shelves for what she needed. She could feel Digg's curious stare. After all, she had vetoed the procedure just a few minutes ago. "We have a limited amount of Ray's stuff, so I'm thinking of fixing a third of it with the dialysis solution, using that as a homing beacon for the toxin. That way, we can control where the nanotech goes and won't risk diluting it in Barry's blood or it leaking out of his vascular system," she explained as she continued to rummage through the stocks. One consequence of anaphylactic shock was that blood vessels became leakier – if they didn't address that, the nanotech would not be able to circulate and instead get stuck in tissues where it wouldn't be doing any good.

"And still ensure that the toxin is trapped and can be flushed out," Digg nodded as he understood what she was trying to do. He then held up a couple of catheter tubes for her approval. At her nod, he placed it in the cart.

"Then once we flush the dialysate out, we can uncouple the nanotech from the toxin and reuse it," she said as she carefully unloaded an armful of specially marked IV bags into the cart. "I'm worried about the side-effects though." She was more than a little bit worried. More could go wrong than right.

Digg posed the rhetorical question that had been playing non-stop in the back of her mind, "What choice do we really have?" He understood her apprehension. It was part of a physician's job to consider the ramifications of every action they took. He was just relieved that his training in the Army had made him more pragmatic – at least in the medical sense.

He was right, Caitlin's heart thought as it tried to convince her brain. They didn't really have a choice in the matter but she couldn't help the anxiety she was feeling. A lot of doctors would balk at using experimental technology on their patients. "I know. But this is the first time that I'm going to use something on Barry that I'm not totally familiar with…" she pondered. After a thoughtful pause she said, "But you're right. This gives him at least a shot." And that, at the end of the day, was something she could hold on to.

* * *

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 8:40 pm_

Oliver kept staring at his phone after his conversation with the detective and took a few minutes to run through all the clues they had so far: 1) They were dealing with a biological, possible botanical toxin; 2) Barbs similar to leaf trichomes were embedded in Barry's neck; 3) Scopolamine, which is a plant-derived drug, was contained in said barbs – and then it clicked! He had a clearer idea now where he had seen the woman whose picture he had been staring at for what seemed like forever.

 _Could it be possible?_ He asked himself. _It wouldn't hurt to check._

So he held his breath and dialed a number he thought he won't ever use again. "Hello, Jessica! Yes, it's Oliver Queen."

* * *

Happy Holidays, everyone! Kisses!


	9. Chapter 9

It's been too long but I'm finally back! This is a short chapter but hopefully, a good one. So, I won't keep you from it any longer. You know the drill. XOXO

* * *

Chapter 9

 **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:00 pm**

It had been a long night and it wasn't even midnight, Felicity thought to herself. She and Cisco had just finished an initial audit of the memory dumps and it seemed that they had found their culprit. It looked a lot like an APT, short for Advanced Persistent Threat, which is basically spyware that calls home to transmit whatever data it had pilfered. "It loaded itself as a device driver from the thumb drive Barry plugged into his station when he got back from his slushie run," she said to Cisco, who was nibbling on a pencil.

"So all this just to gain access to the CCPD?" Cisco shook his head, unbelievingly. The perp risked murder just to get into a poorly defended system? It didn't make any sense.

Felicity nodded as she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Looks like it," she sighed. She had a lot of digital forensics to carry out and still a lot of code to deconstruct, but she had left all the boring parts to her bots. She needed her brain for other, more pressing stuff. "What did you get off Barry's hard drive?" she asked as she remembered yet another possible lead.

"Oh," Cisco exhaled as he was reminded of his other discovery. He stood up and walked over to his station to retrieve the laptop he used to access Barry's external hard drive. "It looks like Barry had found cases with the similar M.O. from all over. He had tracked unusual spikes in deaths due to anaphylactic shock in and around Central City. He found five cases – two in Metropolis and another three in National City – all adult males but from different backgrounds. M.E. reports all point to anaphylactic shock as the cause of death but not all of them had the lip rash or a previous allergic condition."

"So what connects everything?" Felicity pondered aloud. So much of the data they had right then was disjointed and was coming from all different fronts. It was beginning to make her head ache.

Cisco shrugged. His brain couldn't make heads or tails with the data they had. "I haven't read through everything yet but maybe we should have everybody else take a look at it?" he said as he looked at Felicity expectantly.

Felicity was about to nod her agreement, but Caitlin and Digg's arrival with cartloads of equipment had interrupted her.

Oliver himself came rushing back into the cortex, but skidded to a halt when he saw Caitlin and Digg. "What's up?"

"Caitlin's figured out a more efficient way to deliver the cure to Barry," Digg said as he pushed the carts into the treatment room.

Oliver, Felicity and Cisco looked at Caitlin – who nodded back at them. "We just need to set-up the treatment room for the procedure," she stated as she followed Digg, "and for Cisco to reprogram the tech."

"On it!" Cisco said as he removed himself from the cortex to start yet another task.

"Okay, we'll handle things here," Felicity said as she looked at her friends leave. She then shifted her focus to Oliver. She was pretty sure he had something huge. His energy was ratcheted all the way up, "What did you get from the detective?"

He hurried over to her. "We have a sketch of a possible suspect and I think I've seen her before," he said as he made a few keystrokes of his own on the main console.

Another piece of the giant puzzle. Felicity didn't know whether to rejoice or bang her head on the nearest flat surface. There were too many moving pieces. Normally, she'd be hopping up and down right then, working on the latest mystery with gusto but now… She huffed. She had to admit that she was a little rusty. It used to be so much easier. In her mind, things usually went faster.

The sketch Joe sent over popped up onscreen. Felicity studied it for a moment and was pretty positive that she hadn't seen this woman ever. _Another one of his ex-girlfriends, maybe? You know he had and still can have a thing for gorgeous model types, right?_ She didn't know whether it was the rational part or the jealous part of her brain talking. But since it wasn't even remotely helpful, she just shook her head to clear it of the wayward thoughts.

"I called Lyla to quarterback this mission from Starling," he quickly said as he established a comm link with the team they had left behind.

 _What?_

At her scrunched eyebrows, he continued, "Don't worry. Tommy has Sara. Luckily, Laurel's already in place. Lyla's picking up Thea from Verdant before they make their way to her now."

 **Starling City, 9:05 pm**

Thea had just gotten into Lyla's backseat when Lyla picked up Oliver's call, "Hey, I just got Thea."

"Yeah, I'm here!" Thea greeted as she began to change into the more formal outfit Lyla had quickly put together in the five minutes it took for Tommy to report for manny duty. She, Lyla, Laurel and Tommy were on standby in Starling while Oliver, Felicity and Digg left to help out with Barry. Roy had business to attend to in Blüdhaven.

"Hey, just need to get Laurel in on this," Oliver said over the speakerphone as Lyla sped through the city streets. "Laurel, can you hear us?" he asked.

"You guys are 5x5," Laurel said as she checked in.

"Wait, why are you on comms, Oliver?" Thea asked as she finished zipping herself up. "Where's Felicity?"

"Right here, Thea," she heard Felicity interject. "But your dear old brother still hasn't read me in."

 _Uh-oh_ , Thea thought. She could hear the pique in Felicity's voice.

"I got Jessica Danforth to add Thea as a last minute donor to her charity gala at the Botanical Gardens tonight. Speedy can play interference for Lyla and Laurel while they retrieve security footage from two weeks ago," Oliver explained. Then to Laurel he asked, "How's security?"

"Security's a bit loose and concentrated in the key access points around the Main Pavilion."

"Lyla, what's your ETA?"

"Ten minutes."

"Just in time to be fashionably late," Thea quipped as she retouched her make-up.

"All right, we'll check back with you in ten." Oliver said as he clicked off.

 **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:07 pm**

Felicity was clearly unsatisfied with Oliver's hasty explanation. "Okay, so what's really happening?" she asked.

Oliver winced at the edge of frustration that laced her voice. He grabbed the nearest chair and patted it for her to take a seat. She huffed as she plopped down beside him and waited for him to answer.

He pointed at the screen. "I remember seeing her at the Botanical Gardens after the talk," he said as he recounted the incident that happened two weeks ago. The two of them accompanied Barry, Caitlin and Cisco to the Gardens and helped them get in touch with an expert they needed to consult about the toxin. They didn't get much by way of the expert but at least, this was another possible lead. "It was just a split second but I remember her bumping into Cisco."

Understanding finally dawned on her, "And you organized the team to recover the Gardens' security footage."

"Uh-huh," he answered.

"How are we getting it?" she asked as she reached for her keyboard and started to establish a link to her babies in Starling.

"The system's a closed loop. Everything's run in-house, so it's going to be a smash-and-grab, hopefully without the smashing," Oliver said as he watched her stop typing.

"So, there's nothing I can do from here?" She grumbled.

"There is," he said as he reached across and squeezed her nape. "How about catching me up with what you've found so far?"

 **Central City Police Department, 9:10pm**

Joe had made his way to CCPD Vice after checking the evidence room for Barry's phone. All the evidence had been processed and logged, but his phone was nowhere to be found. He made a mental note to check Barry's lab as he crossed into the domain of one of Central City PD's special units.

He had been hoping to speak with Frank Curtis, the head of CCPD's premier drug squad but only Perez seemed to be there.

"Hey, Joe," she greeted as she saw him come up.

"Hey, Val," he answered as he took a seat opposite her.

Valerie Perez was the only female detective in Vice. Tall, tanned and beautiful, she was often mistaken for a swimsuit model. But in truth, she was one badass cop who had been instrumental in busting several drug cartels, prostitution rings and porn hubs that used to operate in the city.

"How's Barry, by the way?" she inquired. News about Barry's earlier brush with death had quickly spread throughout the precinct.

"Resting," Joe answered glibly. He hadn't told anyone where Barry actually was. They all thought he was at his house, resting.

"Good to hear," she sighed and then asked, "So, what brings you by?"

"There's a case I'm working on that involves a drug. Thought you guys can help," he said. "Trace amounts of scopolamine was found on the victim." Again, he really wanted to keep things on the down low. He didn't want a good detective nosing around especially since he needed to keep Barry's secret safe.

"Was it in powder form?" she pondered aloud.

"Why'd you ask?"

"Because there's been a string of weird incidents around the city of people being 'robbed' with no recollection of their willingly handing over the items that were 'stolen' from them," Detective Perez provided as she rummaged through her desk to retrieve several files. She handed them over to him to have a look.

Joe browsed through them. "It wasn't. It was liquid. Likely injected," he relayed as he leafed through several accounts of mostly elderly people being had, and later found to have traces of white powder in their faces and clothing. The white powder had been analyzed and was repeatedly confirmed to be consistent with hyoscine hydrobromide a.k.a. scopolamine. He looked at the signatory for the test results. "So, Barry was the one who signed off on the test results?"

"Uh-huh. There are also uncorroborated reports linking this drug to a number of spiked drinks and sexual assaults but I haven't heard of any scopolamine injection attacks," she answered. At the defeated look on Joe's face, she continued, "Look, from what I know, its distribution used to be tightly controlled by the Darbinyan family. They parceled and sold the contraband as Twilight Mist. But ever since they got offed, this stuff has been all over the place. Word on the street is that there's a new player in town but we've never gotten any solid leads. As far as we know, it enters the city the same way most drugs do now –"

"The docks," Joe supplied. Ever since the Central City docks were transformed into a freeport zone, all sorts of stuff has been entering the city that much easier.

Detective Perez nodded.

 _Well, at least there's that_ , he thought as he returned the case files to her desk neatly. "Thanks, Val."

She nodded in acknowledgement. "Sorry, I couldn't be of any more help," she said as Joe stood.

"Don't worry about it," Joe said. _He already had a vigilante who could look into it._

* * *

Notes:

M.O. = modus operandi def. a distinct pattern or method of operation that indicates or suggests the work of a single criminal in more than one crime

M.E. = medical examiner

* * *

Hope you liked it. Let me know what you think below. It'll help me greatly in figuring out the tone for the rest of this story. Thanks again for reading! Kisses!


	10. Chapter 10

The science just about killed me on this one! Nanotech is hard for the uninitiated. I hope I did it some justice. Anyway, after the long wait, I won't keep you from this latest chapter any longer. A warning, though: it's the longest I think I've ever written for this story. Well then, you know the drill! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 10

 ** _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 9:10 pm_**

Caitlin and Digg were too busy prepping their soon-to-be work area to mind Cisco's mounting excitement. He had been exploiting several possible workarounds for Ray's nanotech to work within the parameters Caitlin had set – with No. 1 being that the whole thing does not end up killing Barry and with No. 2 being that they had to take advantage of field dialysis as their delivery mechanism.

The way he figured it, he just had to adapt Caitlin's idea of affixing Ray's nannites to the polymer in the dialysis solution. But with a lot of moving parts that need to work to get everything right, he thought to just go ahead and incorporate Caitlin's whole diagnostic system and adjust it to function with Ray's nanoparticles. Her system was already proven and can be modified into a two-step detection method that uses one antibody as the biosensor that targets the toxin and another antibody as a reporter that would emit a fluorescent signal when the toxin has indeed been acquired. He could then easily conjugate both those antibodies to the nanoparticles and they had their toxin-targeted detection system. That was the easy part.

The part that had him thinking was how exactly to signal the nannites to form a capsule around the captured protein and how to restrict the encapsulation process to an area of Barry's body which they can have ready access to via dialysis. He had been waiting almost impatiently to see just exactly how his workarounds would pan out when his workstation pinged with the results of his latest simulation.

"Boom!" He exclaimed as he went through the read out. "That's how you do it!"

"You got everything to work?" Caitlin asked as she came over to his workbench after wiping down all exposed surfaces and equipment with antiseptic. She knew that he didn't get _that_ excited without something going either extremely well or enormously wrong for him.

"Theoretically, but we'll probably have to go step-by-step, since we basically have a five-part problem here. Part 1 is how to make Ray's nannites recognize the toxin. I figured that we should go ahead and use your diagnostic system for that. We could use an antibody that targets the invariable base of the protein to maintain a 1:1 toxin-to-antibody ratio. Then, we couple the toxin-targeted antibodies with one vial of the nannites, and then inject these biosensor conjugates into Barry's circulation through his IV so that they could essentially search his entire body for their target. Meanwhile, we also conjugate our reporter antibody to another vial of the nanoparticles and affix the hybrid to the polymer in the dialysis solution, just like you said. That way, we can keep track of all the nanoparticles we introduce."

"So, basically we have two halves of the whole. Question is how do we bring those two halves close enough to each other for them to encapsulate the toxin?" The doctor pondered.

Cisco replayed the simulation he was working on as he explained, "That's where Parts 2 and 3 come in. Part 2 is how to direct the nanoparticles to where we want them to be. Ray's nanoparticles are magnetic. We can direct the sensors to where the reporters are and make them close enough to each other by applying an external magnetic field."

"But wouldn't the magnetic field also affect the reporters?" Digg said as he joined them. He had turned on the UV lamp to sterilize the tented area where they would be doing the procedure and was just waiting for enough time for the irradiation to do the job.

Caitlin answered, "In field or peritoneal dialysis, we take advantage of the peritoneal membrane – in this case, the natural physical barrier between the dialysis solution and Barry's blood – and its impermeability to the polymer in the dialysis solution. By affixing our reporters to the polymer, we essentially prevent our reporters from ever escaping into the circulation, even if we're using magnets to direct our sensors towards them."

"And when the sensors, which are small enough to pass through the membrane, cross into reporter territory, then we've basically moved the staging area for the rest of the process away from Barry's bloodstream, and confined it within the peritoneal cavity, which we can, in turn, access via the abdomen," Cisco added.

Digg nodded his head. He appreciated them making every effort to makes things more understandable to him.

Once the question was settled, Cisco picked up his explanation once again, "Part 3 is how to signal the nannites to encapsulate the protein. We know that when our detector binds our sensor and sandwiches the toxin, a fluorescent signal is released. Fortunately for us, that near-infrared signal seems to work well in catalyzing photoreactive nanoparticle self-assembly. So, basically, once the two halves we have meet and form the nanoparticle-toxin core, a kind of nanoflare goes up and the free-standing nanoparticles rush in towards the signal and start building a protective shell around the core.

This is where the third vial comes in. We introduce these non-conjugated nannites as free-standing molecules in the dialysis solution. We localize these particles to the peritoneum the same way we direct the sensors – with magnets."

"Okay so we essentially have a system that can direct and localize everything out of his circulation. Part 4, I guess, addresses how we get those capsules out?" Digg asked Cisco.

At Cisco's nod, Caitlin answered the implied question, "We could do that by flushing the now toxin-contaminated solution out through the dialysis catheter we would be embedding in Barry's abdominal cavity."

"Yes!" Cisco agreed. "Then Part 5 is figuring out how to reuse them. Good thing for us is that the self-assembly process also happens to be light-reversible," he said as his simulation ended with the nanoparticles breaking up and releasing the core after reacting yet again to photostimulation. "Then, all we need is to separate the different nanoparticles from the now toxic solution before we can do everything all over again," he smiled as he finished his presentation. And then his smile turned sad when he came to miss the real genius that had been Ray Palmer. The man had been right when he said that this technology was going to be the wave of the future.

"So, how long until we get this ball rolling?" Digg asked.

"Oh," Cisco said as Digg's question pulled him back from being almost too maudlin. "Just give me a few minutes to whip up everything," he said as he started on yet another assignment. "Caitlin, I'm gonna need your help."

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:15 pm_**

"This doesn't make any sense!" Felicity grumbled as she paced in front of a projection of the virtual evidence wall she and Oliver had built in the past few minutes to plot out and summarize all their key findings in the case. There in the center was part of the malicious code she had newly deconstructed.

"Hmmm?" Oliver queried as he looked up from reading the files Cisco had unearthed from Barry's hard drive.

"The payload – the spyware – it's too sophisticated." She answered as she made her way back to her seat beside him. She had figured out what the other elements of the payload did. She had already uncovered how it had gained access to the CCPD network and how it could initiate outbound network connections. Now, she had found a RAT within the system. RATs, short for _Remote Administration Tools_ , are essentially programs that give a remote operator full access to control a system as if he had physical access to that system. RATs were nothing new to her – she used them regularly – but what bothered her was that the code, which seemed too elegantly written, remained unused.

"I mean, if someone could write code like this, why would he or she risk recognition by getting Barry to infect the network – a poorly defended network at that – when everything could have been more easily done remotely? It doesn't make any sense," she continued. From her perspective, if the shadows are a hacker's best friend, any hacker who's worth their salt – as the author of this code seemed to be – would work overtime to keep it that way.

Oliver pondered the situation. He thought that maybe being a counter-surveillance expert overcame that risk but that didn't fly. In that arena, it was always best to operate as covertly as possible. Felicity was right that it didn't make any sense – _unless of course, the perp isn't a hacker,_ he thought. "What if we assume that whoever this is _isn't_ a hacker but an end-user?" he posited.

"That… that…" she stuttered as she blinked and then she smiled. "I now remember why I keep you around," she teased as she rolled her chair closer to him to kiss his cheek.

Oliver smirked as he felt her lips on his skin.

"Now, I can add another parameter to my search," she said as she moved back to her console. She had deployed a number of her bots to scour all known federal and commercial virus definition databases to look for any similarities in the script, the temporal signature and other digital 'patterns of life' between their samples and this payload. Now, she had to tell her bots to also look for similar software that had been stolen or sold. "Anything new on your end?" she asked as she began to type in her commands.

"Cisco was right about the victims not all having the lip rash, but they did have suspicious skin findings in other, ahem, _less exposed_ parts of their bodies," he answered as he queued up the pictures for Felicity to see for herself.

Felicity tried not to cringe as she scanned through the pictures (one was even captioned 'probably severe latex allergy'). _Those victims probably got a little too much of what they'd bargained for_ , she thought as she shook her head. This just proved that death by kiss was still so obviously on the table and strengthened the possibility that the aggressor was female. _A femme fatale_ , she thought, _who must have had a pretty humongous reason to murder those men if she would go as far as debasing herself in order to accomplish the task._

The double beep of the comms alerted them to an incoming call and diverted their attention. Oliver tapped his keyboard twice to answer the call and put it on speaker.

"You're on," he said.

"We're in," Lyla's voice said over the secure line.

"Copy that, Harbinger," he answered as Felicity started to trace their signals and overlay them as pulsing dots on the Gardens' Main Pavilion's blueprints. She may not be able to hack her way in but she had found a way to help by commandeering one of the S.T.A.R. Labs weather drones that was serendipitously in the right place in its flight path to be used as their remote eyes for this little mission. "What's your status?" he asked.

"Heading to the target now. Speedy's on mission. Canary's on the lookout," she answered.

"Here, here," Laurel chimed in.

"And I'm on overwatch," Felicity joined in as she overlaid the weather drone's real-time hyperspectral images on the screen. This way, she could isolate Lyla, Laurel and Thea and alert them to signatures that are moving their way.

"Overwatch has all of you in sight." Oliver said as he officially acknowledged Felicity with her own brand new codename. He saw her smile. "Proceed with caution. Over," he said, as he smiled back at her.

"Copy. Stand-by," Lyla answered.

 ** _Starling City, Botanical Gardens, 9:18 pm_**

Lyla scanned the hallway for the door that leads to the Pavilion's main security room. Felicity had signaled the all clear for her to proceed down the hall.

Laurel was just outside, where the other end of the hallway led to the Pavilion's main exhibition hall, pretending to take a call. The plan was for Lyla to play drunk – and she had doused her unremarkable black chiffon gown with a generous splash of alcohol to play up the effect – and to 'mistake' the security room for the bathroom to draw whoever was in there out. Everything else they were left to do by the seat of their proverbial pants.

"Got the door?" Laurel asked through the comms.

"Still looking. Wait, I've got eyes on it," Lyla answered as she kept up the illusion of her intoxication by wending her way to it. There was no light shining underneath it and it had a keycard lock. Good thing they didn't need a digital lock picker for what she was about to do.

"Overwatch, anything on the inside?" she asked as she laid herself against the door.

"A lot of equipment running hot… And from the looks of it, a single guard," came the answer in her ear.

"Roger that," she said as she acknowledged the last transmission. "Here goes nothing," she warned her team as she started to pound loudly and 'drunkenly' on the door.

It opened to reveal one angry guard. "Lady, this ain't the bathroom," he said as he disgustedly scrunched his nose.

Lyla, who had been leaning on the door, had fallen on him, and slurred, "But… but… the man there said…"

"The bathroom's at the–"

He was interrupted by Lyla pretending to vomit. At the guard's continued hesitation, Lyla let out another exaggerated heave. She needed to force him out of the room, where she could drug him out of camera range.

But instead of bringing her to the bathroom, the guard took her into the room and directed her to the facilities within. Lyla went along with it. She had just been supposed to wedge the door open for Laurel to take over the security room once she had neutralized the guard. _But this,_ she smiled as the guard left her inside the security center's bathroom, _this was even better._

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"We're good. Come on in," Lyla said after she had disabled the surveillance system and opened the door for her accomplice. She had already accessed the archive when Laurel finally came in.

"You got in?" Laurel asked as she entered the room and took in the now dozing guard.

"Yes," Lyla answered as she brought up the video feed menu and called up all stored footage from two weeks ago. She had been sorely tempted to copy the entire day's files to the hard drive Laurel had unstrapped from her thigh but how long the guard stayed down was unpredictable. She wouldn't risk discovery for that so to Oliver, she asked, "Which area do we focus on?"

"The reception area after the talk in the auditorium," he replied, "I remember seeing a camera by the elevator so there must've been at least one angle covering our friends."

"And also the auditorium entrances at least an hour before and after the talk," Felicity added. "The more angles you get, the more information we can give to the gait recognition software to analyze."

"Okay," Lyla said as she began to queue up the files from all possible cameras that would have most likely captured their friends, and therefore, their perp.

Laurel in the meantime started scanning the sequences that Lyla had called up on the bigger screen. "Okay, I see them," she said as she spotted Oliver, Felicity, and their Central City friends in the footage. She repeated the marking process as Lyla queued up more footage.

Lyla then began to isolate the footage coming from the camera angles Laurel had marked. All in all, they had about 6-10 angles to choose from at any one time.

A groan erupted from the guard.

Lyla quickly began to copy the files they needed as Laurel scrambled to tidy up the room and make sure they left zero evidence of the theft, including the syringe containing the drug Lyla had used to knock the guard out. He could be waking up soon.

"How long to copy?" Laurel asked as she came back to the console.

"Twenty seconds," Lyla whispered as she oversaw the transfer.

At another groan from their unwilling victim, Lyla moved out of the way as Laurel wheeled the guard back to his position in front of the screen.

"Ten," Lyla counted down as she began wiping down the console and the guard's chair to clean up their prints.

Laurel already had her hand on the drive, ready to rip it out and make a run for it.

"Hallway's clear for exit," Felicity said over the comms. "Run when you must."

The blue light on the drive stopped blinking as the guard began to stir. Laurel ripped it out that instant, stashed it in her clutch and made for the door. Lyla gave Laurel a few more seconds to clear the hallway before she restored the cameras and made her way back to the security room's bathroom.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"Are we good?" Thea asked to no one in particular via the comms once she got away from the crowd. Even if she had been hobnobbing with Starling City's elite, her ear had been privy to everything that was going down behind the scenes. When no answer was forthcoming, she surreptitiously allowed her eyes to roam the room. She caught Laurel huff as she entered the Pavilion. "Package is secure," Thea saw the Canary mouth as she heard it through her earpiece.

"Harbinger?" Thea asked.

"Overwatch, I don't have eyes on Harbinger," Laurel reported at Thea's query.

"Her comm's still active," Felicity said. "She's still in the room."

They all held their collective breaths as they waited… and waited… and waited…

Until static noise buzzed into their ears and was followed by their teammate's crackled voice, "Harbinger here. I'm clear. I'm okay."

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:25 pm_**

Felicity and Oliver both exhaled their relief as Lyla's voice came through.

"I have a visual," Thea confirmed.

"Good to hear that, Harbinger!" Oliver said as he sat back down. All the worry had him standing tensely the past few minutes. "Now, come home. Over," he commanded.

"Copy that!" Thea and Laurel exclaimed at the same time.

"Wilco, out," Lyla said as she ended the transmission.

Oliver rubbed his thumbs over his eyes as he leaned back on his chair.

"They're fine," Felicity said as she rubbed his bicep to soothe him.

Oliver exhaled and nodded. "I know," he said as he looked at her. "I know."

Felicity patted his arm twice as she smiled at him before she went back to work.

 ** _Central City Police Department, 9:30 pm_**

Joe had made a detour back to his office, where he was now unearthing his files on this case. When Val mentioned Twilight Mist, he had begun to get a nagging feeling that there was a connection with his victims that he was missing. It got stronger when he left Vice, so he had postponed his trip to Barry's office to instead head into his own, to scour his files to confirm his inkling.

True enough, his files bore out his gut feeling. There buried in the last pages of the first file was information that named one of the victims as a person-of-interest in relation to a case alleging the sale and illegal distribution of prescription and illegal drugs including Twilight Mist. The victim was thought to be one of the straw men who brokers deals for gangs and the like, with legitimate pharmaceutical companies to get a line on pure product.

He then reached for another file on his desk. It was the alderman's file. He reviewed the case and the newspaper clippings he had just skimmed before and found out an important fact he seemingly ignored – it was the alderman who had pushed for the conversion of the docks into a Freeport zone. The last file was thinner than both. The third victim was a strip club owner with no priors but who's allegedly involved with human trafficking. No new information or epiphanies jumped out at him, but he knew right then that he was onto something.

 _That's 2 out of 3 with a known connection to drugs and the docks_ , he thought, as he stood and started to make his way to Barry's lab. The third case could also very well be connected to either but he had yet to find more information to substantiate that. But between what Detective Perez revealed and this, 2/3 was enough to put his other team on this, he absently ruminated.

It didn't take long for his feet to find its way to his destination. Joe had been so lost in thought about the ramifications of his new findings that he had briefly forgotten why he was where he found himself.

 _Barry's phone_ , his brain supplied.

 _Ah_ , he thought as he made his way to the switch to open the lights.

The coffee stain that marred the floor was still a blatant reminder of all that he could've lost. He sighed as he circled the room.

Just then, his Cisco phone rang. It was Felicity.

"Hello," he answered.

"Hi, Detective. I was hoping to follow-up with you about Barry's phone?"

"I'm actually on it. Hold on a sec," he said as he crouched down and surveyed the floor. Barry's phone was last seen when his son had taken a call earlier that morning. It didn't appear in any of the evidence logs or evidence boxes, or in what he could remember of Barry's personal effects upon discharge from the hospital. The footage also placed Barry by his desk when he collapsed. So, maybe it made sense if he started there.

He looked beneath Barry's desk. _Nothing._

He had then looked under his equipment and work bench and even under his cabinets. _Nada._

So he stood up and took a few steps back until he hit what he called Barry's obsession wall. The board was jostled and prompted him to look back as a tether seemed to have snapped and a whole layer of the board rolled up.

"Detective?" Felicity asked as she heard the snap. "Detective, what's wrong?" she prompted yet again as Joe failed to give an answer.

Joe couldn't believe his eyes. "I'll be with you shortly," he said as he clicked off the call and used his phone to snap a photo. _This case just never wants to end!_ He thought while exasperatedly scratching his head as he headed out of the room.

 _ **Somewhere in Central City, 9:40pm**_

A lone figure sat in the dark somewhere in Central City, watching keenly from a screen, as the detective rushed out of the frame. Without the man blocking the view, the shadow in the darkness saw just exactly what urged him to move and so swiftly.

 _Shit._ The specter shook its head.

It was time to make a decision.

* * *

How'd you like it?

Anyway, please accept my heartfelt thanks for your continued support! Don't forget to let me know what you think. Reviews/comments/follows/faves are always, always appreciated! Kisses!


	11. Chapter 11

Hello, again! I know, it has been too long. I can never thank you people enough for sticking with me through this monster. My original outline was six chapters but we're already way past that, aren't we? But we're building to that climax, people. Slowly but surely (and hopefully), we'll get there. Anyway, I took some creative liberties (especially with the time constraints) but the tech and the medical procedures here do exist in the real world. I won't keep you waiting with more blah, blah, blah from me so, y'all know the drill. Hope you enjoy! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 11

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:40 pm_

Felicity hadn't liked the way Joe sounded when he clicked off their conversation. There was something ominous – like they didn't have enough of _that_ already – about the way the detective had paused in abrupt silence just before he terminated the call. She had quickly popped into the treatment room after that to ask Caitlin if she saw Barry's phone and all she got was an absent "no" from the doctor who was quite busy with prepping Barry for surgery.

So here she was, hacking Barry's mobile carrier to get a lead on his damned phone. A quick ping would've done the job if its present location was the only information they were after. But no, they needed call logs and a location history at the very least. Hopefully, the battery was still on. If not, she would have to resort to more sophisticated NSA-level hacks to find it – and she just didn't have time for that with everything that was going on. Just because she was good doesn't mean there isn't much time, effort and energy she needed to expend on anything she does. Hacking into something was usually the easy part. The 'not-getting-caught' part was where all the harder work came in.

She sighed. She got nothing on the ping, meaning that the phone was almost certainly dead. The "loss of service" message she got when she called Barry's phone strengthened that assumption. She'd still get more information from the phone company so she went ahead and pressed the _Enter_ key to execute her code. Then her brain began compiling a list of what she needed for the next stage of her 'data acquisition protocol'.

Just then a double beep sounded from the comms. It was Laurel calling from the Arrow Cave.

"Canary," Oliver acknowledged as he tapped his earpiece to put the call on. He had left Felicity before she had dialed Joe and was just coming back from the treatment room after helping Cisco set up some of the signal detectors, monitors, magnets and what-not they needed for Barry's procedure.

"It's packed and ready to go," she said. She already encrypted the data and had plugged in the drive that she had smuggled out of The Gardens into one of the Cave's secure terminals before calling Central City.

"Overwatch?" Oliver prompted when Felicity didn't answer. He knew when she got like this, that she was in the zone – and that usually meant that she needed a little more prodding to bring her back to the present.

A hand on her shoulder pulled Felicity away from her thoughts to the new task at hand.

"Hmmm?"

"Are we ready for the transfer?" Oliver asked as he pointed to his earpiece.

"Oh," Felicity said as she finally caught up to the thread of the conversation. She quickly opened another terminal window to facilitate the secure file transfer between them. To Laurel, she said, "You're going to have to call up a few services to get that over here."

"I know. And you're going to have to walk me through some of the later steps. We both know who's better at this than I am. Unfortunately, he has someone precious drooling all over him now," Laurel cooed as she received a photo from Lyla showing how the ex-ARGUS agent had found Sara drooling on Tommy's chest as they both slept.

Oliver showed her his phone with the picture Lyla had apparently sent to all of them.

"Aww," Felicity gushed as she shared a soft smile with Oliver before they went back to work. Tommy had really gone a long way from his previously mercenary, albeit amnesic ways to being one of Sara's many favorite uncles and to one of the few people she had trusted to work with her babies. Even Oliver didn't have the same level of access to the LAIR system that Tommy now had.

"Those two are just sometimes too cute for their own good," Laurel replied.

Felicity chuckled as she remotely called up a similar file transfer window on Laurel's terminal. "You ready for this?" she asked.

"Uh-huh. Hit me," Laurel said as she began to follow Felicity's instructions.

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 9:45 pm_

Caitlin took a deep breath to center herself. She and Digg were fully gowned and gloved and Barry had already been draped and prepped. "Cisco, are we all set?" she asked, her voice a bit muted by the mask she wore.

"Ready when you are," came her friend's reply from somewhere behind her.

"Digg?"

"We're all set," he answered.

"Begin recording," she said as she instructed Cisco to start the camera rolling.

"The patient is Bartholomew Henry Allen, 25 year old male, to undergo percutaneous Tenckhoff catheter insertion for acute peritoneal dialysis under IV sedation with local anesthesia. I, Dr. Caitlin Snow will be heading the procedure and will be assisted by Mr. John Diggle," Caitlin said as she recited all the salient facts of the surgical case.

As Caitlin completed the surgical time out, John looked at the monitors. Everything looked stable. Caitlin looked at him and he nodded his agreement to the time out, "Acknowledged."

"All right. Local," she said, prompting Digg to hand her the syringe full of lidocaine. Once in her hand, she began to infiltrate the operative site from the skin to the deep muscles with the local anesthetic. She tested the area by pinching Barry's skin with a pair of toothed tissue forceps to observe any changes in his vital signs or any visible indicators of pain. When she observed none, she proceeded. "Knife," she said as she asked for the instrument with her open palm. She felt Digg place the scalpel in her hand and saw him strategically position a sponge near the operative site. She took another deep breath, held the knife securely in a pencil grip and positioned it above the left side of Barry's abdomen. "Cutting," she exhaled as she made a transverse incision toward his hipbone.

"Cutting time: 2146 Hours," Digg said as he looked at the clock to mark the time.

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 9:50 pm_

Joe hurriedly entered the cortex. He would've arrived sooner had he not taken the time to ensure that he wasn't being followed. The contents of Barry's obsession wall gave them more information and with it another set of questions to be answered. But one thing was for sure – the bodies kept piling up and he'll damn well make sure that Barry didn't end up as one of those unfortunate souls.

"Joe," Felicity huffed in relief. She was just waiting for the secure data transfer to finish when the detective came in. "What happened? You sounded weird over the phone. I was worried."

"I'm sorry for cutting you off abruptly but I really needed you to see this," he said as he showed her and Oliver the photo he had snapped of Barry's evidence wall.

Felicity took his phone and connected it to the network to blow up the high-definition photo on their holographic display. "Oliver!" she exclaimed as her eyes landed on the one thing that was written in big bold red letters.

Oliver's jaw dropped as he took in that one glaring conclusion: _Serial Killer or Vigilante?_

"Frak!" was all Felicity could say.

"My thoughts exactly," Joe said as he shook his head as he took in the four other case files on the wall. "This goes further than we originally thought."

"Actually, a lot further," Felicity said as she revealed the other five they've unearthed from Barry's encrypted hard drive. An hour ago they were looking at nine victims, Barry included. Now, it seems that Barry had tracked down a few others bringing their total to unlucky number 13. "And if these are all really connected…"

"And this crossed state lines…" Oliver trailed off.

"We could have a federal case in our hands," Joe shook his head as he completed the thought. He didn't know whether to rejoice at the possible addition of manpower and expertise or bang his head against the wall for the added layer of red tape, and worse, the increased risk of exposure.

"Woah," Felicity said at the seemingly disappointed panic that was settling over them, "Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's cross-reference everything we have first and see what we really have here."

Both men nodded as she settled back into her chair.

"I've found another possible lead, by the way," Joe added. "It seems that scopolamine is beginning to be a problem drug in this city – muggings, assaults and other attacks. It used to be traded by the Darbinyan Family as Twilight Mist but ever since they got creamed, CCPD Vice has been getting reports about the docks being the main entry point. Two of the _vics_ , the alderman and the pharmaceutical rep have clear connections to the docks and the drug. The strip club owner is clean so far but he has unconfirmed ties to a human trafficking ring."

"I bet that, if we look more into it, he's probably tied into the docks or the drug or both," Felicity surmised. "Mind if I go rooting around in your system again, Detective?"

"Be my guest," Joe answered, conveniently ignoring his captain's directive for on-site access only. Hell, their network had already been compromised anyway, so he'd rather have his team in it with the perp.

With his approval, Felicity went straight to work, doing what she did best.

"How's he?" Joe asked Oliver as his eyes fell on Barry's treatment room. The door was closed and the glass was fogged up.

"He's stable. Caitlin and Cisco worked up a way to treat him. They're hoping it reverses his symptoms, or at least, limits the damage that's already done. Digg's there to help with the procedure," Oliver supplied. "Didn't Caitlin inform you?"

"John did. He said that this procedure was time sensitive. I told them to go ahead without me."

"I was there about ten minutes ago. Barry didn't look any worse," Oliver said as he tried to placate Joe's worries. "You want to look in on him while Felicity and I see what we have here? Cisco's there, too."

"Thanks," Joe nodded as he made his way to where the rest of the team was.

"Felicity –" Oliver started to say when she held up a finger to shush him. She was speaking to Laurel.

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "We just need to cross-reference all the case files. We're thinking serial murder here."

"Okay, send those reference numbers over. I'll see what I can do," Laurel said.

"I'll do you one better. I'll send over the files we already have and pass Oliver on to you to help," Felicity replied as she bundled the files she had retrieved from their various devices and sent them Laurel's way.

Once done, she turned to Oliver, but before she could speak a word, he said "Files. Laurel. Got it," and sat back down on his side of the embankment.

"Laurel," Felicity said after a beat, "you have the files?"

"I've got them. Has the other transfer finished?"

"Yup," Felicity said as the transfer indicator showed 100%. "Turning you over to Oliver now."

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 10:00 pm_

"He's going to be okay, right?" Joe asked as he finally found his voice. He had been silently watching Caitlin and Diggle as they raced against both the toxin and Barry's regenerative powers. They had to work doubly fast and doubly hard to finish introducing the catheter into his son's abdomen. They were lucky that Digg had the arm strength to pry Barry's rapidly healing muscles apart long enough so that Caitlin could correctly position the catheter within their patient's peritoneal cavity. Once the insertion was done and Barry's skin had healed over the incisions on both the catheter entry and exit sites, they introduced the fluids holding the different components of the cure.

"Let's cross our fingers," Cisco said to Joe as he initiated the sequence of magnets and light sources that would hopefully rid Barry of the toxin that continued to ravage his body. As the machines whirred to life, they saw Digg and Caitlin stepped back from the sterile field.

If it weren't for the specialized deep tissue two-photon microscope Cisco and Oliver had set-up earlier, no one would have had a clue as to what was going on. Cisco held his thumbs up at Caitlin and Digg indicating that the process was underway, before he turned to Joe, "It looks like it's working so far."

Joe could only see the explosion of fluorescent color on the screens. If Cisco said it was working, it was working. "Now what?" he asked to no one in particular.

"We wait. If this succeeds, we can get Barry up and running in no time. As in literally, up and running," Cisco said as Digg and Caitlin started to remove their gowns, masks and gloves.

Caitlin immediately went over to Joe after disposing her protective equipment, "His vitals are stable for now and he's healing faster even when I've tried to slow it down. That means his body is recovering but we both know that if we don't do something about the toxin, his supercharged immunity might just trip the whole cascade all over again. So far, everything's fine but we'll know for sure if this is working after we flush out the first batch of the fluid in about"– she paused as she glanced at the clock – "ten minutes." But before she could say anything else, Joe's phone rang.

It was Iris. He excused himself from the group to take the call.

"Dad, I just got your text. How's Barry? Is he alright? Oh My God! I didn't even know he had an allergy," came Iris' worried voice. "My phone's been on the fritz. I just got a deluge of messages–"

"Relax," Joe calmly interrupted his daughter in a bid to tamp down her rising panic. "He's stable for now. Caitlin's got him."

"Are you sure, he's fine?"

"He's lived through worse," Joe said, hoping to God that he doesn't turn out to be a liar. It was a good thing then that Iris was away on a work trip, visiting the other branches of The Picture News. Joe knew that her new boss was making her jump through hoops and this last minute trip was just one of those things she had to do to show that she could suck it up and stick with the job. If he remembered her schedule correctly, she was in Metropolis right now – home of the mainstream media.

"Okay," she answered, her voice still strained but calmer.

He needed something for her to do to divert her panic, so he asked, "Did you find out anything about scopolamine?" He had texted her a while ago about Barry and just before he hurriedly left CCPD about his suspicions about the drug. With limited access to official law enforcement channels because of the hack, Iris seemed to be the next best thing.

"Oh, that second text. Hold on," Iris said over the clicking sound of what he guessed was her keyboard. "There's nothing much. There's one article that I think you'd be interested in, though. Lois Lane wrote an exposé a few months ago that called the drug "The Silent Scourge" of Metropolis. It says that South America is its biggest natural source. I'm forwarding it to you now. As far as mentions, they've had similar incidents in National City and Coast City, too. No perps though. I'll let you know if I find more. And what's this about Barry dating a redhead? Eddie just texted, asking me about that, too."

"Just a person of interest. So is he?"

"What?"

"Dating a redheaded supermodel?"

"Barry? No. No way. Well, not that I know of, anyway. He hasn't exactly been forthcoming about his love life lately, or his life for that matter. There's this case he's working on that has him obsessed. I swear. Herding cats has got to be easier than getting him to focus on a conversation lately."

 _You don't say_ , he thought. Looking back, he did note Barry being more than his usual level of engrossed with this case. Now, with the evidence he had seen, he knew why. But before he could say anything to confirm his daughter's observation, a beep on his phone indicated new mail. A quick peak at his phone's screen confirmed that it was the article Iris sent over. "Well, anyway, I've got the article. I'll read through this. You be safe there, okay."

"Don't worry, Dad. They have their own red streak here. Only difference is that this one likes blue… oh, and they say he flies."

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 10:05 pm_

Caitlin went straight to her lab after her short talk with Joe. She had test results to follow up, so she was very grateful that Digg volunteered to stay with Barry to keep an eye on things.

She sighed. If this doesn't work, she's going to have to put Barry into suspended animation using more extreme measures like cryopreservation. It was another one of those unvetted technologies with unknown consequences that she really didn't want to experiment with, but short of that, she didn't know what else to do. She had already placed him in a medically induced coma and had tried slowing down his metabolism with cold IV fluids. She even placed a cold blanket over him, but it seemed that his regenerative abilities were recovering quicker than she could regulate them. Usually, that means that he's on the mend and that the worst had come to pass. But with this toxin, she just didn't know.

Caitlin took out the samples Felicity had run on the PCR thermocycler earlier. She'd be running whatever DNA they obtained through a DNA sequencer to find out if they have enough to identify Barry's assailant. Ordinarily, she'd have to fire up one of the big machines down in the Biomedical Wing for that but since time is of the essence, she decided to use her USB-powered nanopore-based mini sequencer prototype instead. It was one of the projects she had been working on before the particle accelerator exploded. One flow cell is no larger than the palm of her hand and is capable of generating sequences much faster than their current top-of-the-line devices. The caveat though is that it produced cruder sequences, with a much lower _Phred_ quality score. That meant that she would have to run the samples again in a conventional machine for more stringent, error-free analyses but she can do that later, when she had the time. What's important now is to have a working profile of the perpetrator.

She already had her prototype hooked up to her workstation, which was running the device's propriety workbench program and was already interfacing with DNA databases via the cloud. All she needed was to prep her sample and pipette it into the flow cell, so she went about her work as efficiently as she could, with the knowledge that she'll be needed in the Treatment Room shortly thereafter. She had just pipetted her sample into her device when an alert message went off on her screen. It was the result of the reverse image search she'd run on several botanical and zoological databases about the morphology of the barbs they got from Barry's neck. She opened the message and scanned it for the information she needed.

There were no exact hits but the query returned several close matches – all of them botanical – just like the toxin. She highlighted the results she needed and appended it to her case file.

"Caitlin, we're ready for the first flushing," said a voice behind her. It was Cisco, reminding her of the next step in Barry's treatment.

"I'll be right there," she called out as she did one final check of her prototype. It was working _. This was the advantage of real-time DNA sequencing_ , she thought as she looked at the seemingly endless stream of information filling her screen. She interpreted the preliminary data as it came in.

 _Hmmm_ , she thought. It seemed that they had isolated two samples of human DNA, one from a male she expects to be Barry, and another one from a female. They now had confirmation of a woman being involved, that is, of course, barring any contamination from her or Felicity. And just to determine whether or not they were dealing with a metahuman, she instructed the program not just to run the samples' Single-Tandem Repeat profiles (which she can use to compare against hers and Felicity's and query CODIS, the FBI's DNA database), but also to search the isolated female sample for the sequence of their proteinaceous toxin.

Satisfied with what she had accomplished in just a few minutes, she left her workstation and went to check on her hopefully convalescing patient. _Good thoughts, Caitlin,_ she motivated herself lest she let herself slide into that downward spiral of helplessness again. _Good thoughts_.

* * *

Oh, and guess who's waking up soon...

Please lemme know what you think. I really wanna hear from you because I tend to get lost in the details without feedback from you. Oh, and I might've had a bit too much to drink, hence my almost uncharacteristic chatter, so forgive the typos and grammatical errors that may exist. Will do a line edit when I'm more sober. Cheers!


	12. Chapter 12

I really want this fic done and over with, so I may have gotten a little bit too carried away. Be warned: this is a looooong chapter. But hopefully it pays off. Oh, and the tech here is mostly in the horizon. I may have mashed them up together but they are being developed separately in the real world. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has regularly given me feedback. You know how much I appreciate it! And to the guests who have left reviews, thank you, too. Please reconsider signing up so that I could PM you some token of my appreciation the next time you leave a review. Anyway, this work is unbeta'd, no copyright infringement is intended and yada, yada, yada. Now, on to the real meat of the matter! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 12

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 10:20 pm_

Oliver stared at their evidence board, now that they've cross-referenced all of the case files Barry had. There was a clear pattern that evolved right in front of his eyes. _The killer was systematic, methodical and almost single-minded in her hatred of men_ , he thought. In the span of 6 months, 12 men have been killed in 5 cities – all of them dropping within days of each other. And they were trying to prevent the thirteenth murder from happening.

"Oliver, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Laurel asked over the comms. She had plotted the dates and the clustering of the victims. _Their timeline was looking pretty grisly_ , she thought.

"That Barry seems to be an anomaly in a sea of efficient killings? Yes," he sighed. "The longest interval between deaths is 7 days. Between Barry and the last victim – it's almost 3 weeks."

"If you factor in the dates of file retrieval and Barry's evidence logs, it almost looks as if she circled back, you know," Laurel commented. "This could be why she came after Barry. He was getting too close."

"Could be," Oliver answered. "And if so, I guess, it's her first mistake." If she hadn't come after Barry, then she would never have had them gunning for her and she would have probably gotten away scot free.

"She probably panicked. I'd imagine having a CSI on her tail kept her up at night," she said.

"Uh-huh – and a persistent CSI at that. But now, I'm more interested in what tipped her off. How could she have known about Barry's investigation?" he posited. He had a feeling he was missing something.

"Isn't that what the hack was for?"

"It seems unlikely. Felicity hasn't found any evidence of a hack prior to today."

"Any luck with those other leads, then?"

"Aside from deconstructing the hack, Felicity's working on getting footage for both gait and facial recognition and on locating Barry's phone. She's also looking into the strip club owner and cross-referencing the financial records of all 12 victims," Oliver said, suddenly overwhelmed with just how much Felicity had been juggling. He looked beside him but she wasn't there. His eyes immediately scanned the room for her, only to see her in front of the holographic display, almost frantically sorting through the footage that Laurel had sent.

"Whoa! Don't you think she's stretched a little too thin? Seriously, Oliver! You're running her to the ground," Laurel admonished.

"I–" Oliver wanted to say that she took it on by herself with no prodding or interference from him whatsoever but Laurel had spoken over him.

"I'm going to go get Tommy. You really need to learn how to ask for more help you know," she chided.

And Oliver just shut up because he knew he couldn't win when Laurel got into this mode. And she was right, in a way, because he should be taking better care of Felicity. He knew just how good Felicity was at what she did and sometimes everybody forgets just how much is on her plate. The other tricky part was getting her to take a break without telling her to – that was a different monster all together.

"Okay," he exhaled. With Cisco focusing on saving Barry, they were short a computer whiz. He'd gladly settle for a non-luddite at this point. _Oh, the words he's learning from his girl!_ "And while you do that, I'll get everybody here together to see if we can make some sense of all of these," he said as Laurel clicked off their conversation.

 _Starling City, Arrow Cave, 10:25 pm_

Laurel had just finished talking with Oliver when she heard footsteps. She whirled on her chair to face the threat, her baton at the ready.

"It's me," Tommy said, with both of his hands in the air signaling his unconditional surrender.

She heaved a sigh of relief. "I was just about to get you."

"No need to hurry then. I'm here. What's up?" he asked as he felt her unease course through his own body. _Perks of being an empath_ , his brain sarcastically quipped. Tommy 2.0 had his wiring screwed up when his lunatic father brought him back to the land of the breathing. Now, he served as a relay antenna for everyone else's feelings. He shook his head to stop himself from obsessing about the litany of faults his second life had bestowed upon him. What's important was that he was alive enough to be sharing space with the woman in front of him – and that pout she was wearing meant that she wasn't in the least bit happy. So, despite the haphephobia that's practically a requirement for empaths, he reached out to touch her shoulder. Over the last few months, he had learned that his touch grounded her and that calming her would create a positive feedback loop that mitigated the effects of her feelings on him.

Laurel took his hand in hers and used it to guide him towards the seat beside her. It was only then, as he sat down in front of one of the many computer terminals in their not-so-secret hideout that he remembered that he was supposed to be transmitting the data the women have procured from their trip to the Botanical Gardens to Felicity in Central City. He was about to ask about it but Laurel had beaten him to it. "The easy part's done," she said. "I've already sent them the data we got. Good thing, you're here for the hard part."

He was almost afraid to ask but he did anyway. "And that is?"

"You're going to have to get Felicity to let you help her. They're being inundated by disjointed information in Barry's case and she's handling the bulk of it."

So, this was what Oliver had texted him about while saying that Felicity had gone on an expletive laden rant just a few seconds ago because her gait recognition software didn't seem to want to cooperate with her.

He exhaled and gestured to Laurel to give him an earpiece.

She smiled as she gave him one, with approval shining in her face.

"Calling, Empress Felicity! Your Padawan awaits," Tommy said as he called into the comms and turned toward a terminal. Laurel snorted. She secretly liked it when he could get his inner dork out for a while.

Felicity chuckled at Tommy's greeting despite her sour mood. She had been getting frustrated with the almost interminable amount of data she had to process. This case was trying her patience. It seemed that the more questions they answer, the more questions they get. It felt nice to not think about any of that for a second. "Hello there, Mr. Sleepyhead! How'd tonight with the cute little thing go?"

Their cute little thing was little Ms. Sara Diggle. Tommy smiled as he remembered Lyla showing him the picture she had snapped of him and Sara while they napped. "The cute little thing drooled all over me – can't say I was disappointed." Then he sobered and continued, "But enough about me. What's this I hear about you getting yourself all tangled up in the shits?"

"Tommy…" she warned, always a bit territorial with her business. _So much for not thinking about this mess._

"Come on, Smoak. Spill," he commanded.

After heaving an exasperated sigh, Felicity updated him on which exact pies her fingers were exactly in – from the hack to Barry's phone to getting an ID on their perp to figuring out if the finances of any of the twelve dead guys intersected in any way.

"So what can I do to help?" Tommy asked.

"Uhm…"

"Give me the financials," he said at her hesitation.

"Are you sure? It's a big data dump."

"Of course, I am. I'm more than just a pretty face, you know," he wisecracked.

"Uh-huh," she said dismissively.

"You wound me, Smoakey!" he said in mock affront. "But seriously, what did you think I did in MG? Or in Verdant, for that matter?"

Felicity paused to think but remained unconvinced of his prowess with the spreadsheets, so she issued a challenge. "Well, if you're so sure, tell me what you see here," she dared as she mirrored her screen unto his.

After taking a few moments to skim over the information on his screen, Tommy remarked, "Uh-oh! Someone's been doing some creative accounting. Looks like you're tracing an endless array of shell companies sheltered in several offshore tax havens."

"Ugh," he heard Felicity mutter and imagined her head hitting the desk when she said that.

"So, how'd I do?" he eagerly teased.

"Alright! I'm convinced," Felicity conceded.

"Yes!" came his triumphant reply.

"You did a victory fist pump, didn't you?" Felicity smirked.

Laurel chortled before tattling on him, "Yes, he did!"

"I'm a good student like that," Tommy replied as Felicity giggled.

And then Tommy saw the alert go up on his screen before he was flooded with the financial records Felicity had collected from the twelve men. "You weren't kidding. It's really big."

"Well, you said you were sure. No backing out now," she muttered.

"I got you, Smoak. No need to worry about that."

"Just look for any ties between them... Please, Tommy."

"You got it. I'll call you back in an hour," he said as he clicked off the call.

"Looks like you've got it from here," Laurel said as she began to take her leave. There was a reason she stuck to practicing criminal law and not corporate law.

But Tommy snaked an arm around her waist to stop her. God, it felt so good to have her in his arms again. Well, they weren't exactly back together, and ever since he came back, they haven't even kissed. Well, they have but in his book, chaste kisses didn't count. "Nuh-uh. Not so fast. You roped me into this – you get to stay, too," he said as he brought her closer to him.

He got a hard swat on the chest for that, but he'll take it.

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 10:30 pm_

Caitlin crossed her proverbial fingers before she checked the fluid they got from the third flushing they've done in the last half hour. They were able to get a lot of the toxin out with the first two and the decrease in toxin load between the two consecutive flushes was an order of magnitude. Hopefully, they'll see a corresponding decrease here. If they do, the next flush would be the last they'd have to do.

She gingerly awaited the read-out on the spectrophotometer. Once she got it, she plotted it out on her calibration curve and did a quick recalculation. "Cisco!" she called out.

"Yo!" he said as he hurried over to her.

"Please tell me that _that_ number's right," she said as she showed him her calculations.

"Yup! It's right," Cisco said as he checked the calculations and the number a third time.

Caitlin couldn't contain her relief, "Oh my God! We're close, Cisco! One more and we'll have a real shot at getting him back." It was a minute victory but she was taking it – guarded expectations be damned!

"Finally! Some good news," he answered as he gave her a relieved hug. "Think we can leave this for a little bit and go to the cortex with the others? We have a lot of other things to sort through," he said, once the moment was over.

She nodded her head. "I'll just take a quick look at Barry then I'll be right over," she said.

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 10:32 pm_

"What have we got?" Caitlin asked as she reached the cortex. Everybody was gathered around the embankment.

Oliver spoke, "We cross-checked all the possible cases Barry had found. We have 13 victims so far, 12 dead spread out in 5 cities over 6 months. If you look at the clustering of victims, it's safe to say that the perp more likely finishes up in one city before moving onto the next. All of those twelve men have been, at some point in their lives, connected to shady businesses or downright criminal enterprises. Some of them have autopsies but Barry was able to get access to medical records for those without. All victims were in relatively good health but died suddenly – most of them by anaphylactic shock, some by apparent cardiac arrest, and all of them have suspicious skin findings."

"We're clueless about victim selection, though. I mean, Barry sticks out like a sore thumb – he's the only one whose record is relatively pristine. And even if these men were shady at best, they pretty much varied in the scope of the bad stuff they participated in," Felicity said as she picked up on Oliver's pause. "I've obtained their financial records. Tommy's combing through them now for any connections or intersections."

Everybody nodded.

"All those cities," Joe pointed at the map, "also seem to be having unusual drug problems. According to CCPD Vice, there have been multiple reports of scopolamine being used in drug-facilitated crimes lately. Addicts are not getting high on this. Criminals are using it to perpetrate crimes. A journalist in Metropolis even called it the 'Silent Scourge' because it seemed that the surging intensity of this drug problem was correlated with a decrease in the homeless people who are out on the streets or in shelters despite a relatively unchanged economic landscape. She posited that they're being herded like sheep by human trafficking rings with this drug. Eddie also said that National City, Coast City and Keystone City have also experienced a spike in drug-facilitated crimes over the last year."

"And all this from a drug that's used to treat motion sickness?" Caitlin said in disbelief.

"It's relatively new as contraband. Biggest raw source is South America. In here, it used to be sold in powdered form and tightly controlled by the Darbinyan Crime Family. But now that they're gone, the stuff is all over the place. Word on the street is that someone needs only to blow this into your face and you'd be susceptible," Joe supplied.

"So aside from Barry not being a bad guy and this drug being new to the scene, are there any other irregularities?" Digg asked.

Oliver answered, "Longest interval between deaths is 7 days. Barry's attack comes 3 weeks after the last victim died. It's safe to say that Barry is an anomaly in that aspect, too. Laurel suggested that with the timeline of Barry's evidence logs, it looks like the perp came after him because of his investigation. The question is how she got wind if it…

"…Oh, shit!" Oliver face-palmed as he realized what exactly he missed during his conversation with Laurel. "Felicity, could you bring up the footage we got from The Gardens?"

Felicity hurried over to the display and played all the tape they got.

"There. Right there," Oliver said as he pointed at one of the feeds prompting Felicity to immediately pause the footage. "That's her."

"The woman in the sketch," Joe remarked as Felicity zoomed in on the woman in question. She was within hearing distance when Barry was questioning the expert they'd consulted about the toxin.

Oliver nodded. "That's how she got wind of Barry's investigation. She was already in the next city. She damned well circled back all right," he huffed.

"We have a name?" Joe asked.

"I'm running her through facial recognition. No hits so far," Felicity said. "I used the auto-capture sequence for gait recognition. For some reason, the program wouldn't let me capture her on manual input. But both of her facial and gait profiles are already live. I'm running them through all the traffic cam feeds I've tapped from the city transportation office. The second she shows her face or walks around in view of a camera, we'll have her."

"I've isolated DNA profiles from the barbs we took out from Barry's neck. Turns out those barbs were some sort of modified epithelial cells from a human female. I'm running the DNA we have through CODIS," Caitlin said after she accessed her results from her workstation remotely.

"So we're good with her as the perp?" Digg asked as he pointed to the sketch that was prominently displayed on their virtual evidence board.

"If we're not really sure before, we could be fairly certain now," Caitlin said as she finally looked up from her tablet and called up her latest lab results to the screen. "I just matched the toxin's protein sequence to a gene in her DNA profile with a high degree of accuracy." She deflated at the knowledge. It all feels so empty without the assurance that Barry will make it.

"So we're dealing with a metahuman femme fatale who stalks her prey and kills with a poisonous kiss?" Cisco asked.

"Not exactly. I found no trace of the _META-1_ gene – the genetic marker we use to look for metahumans – in her. She either doesn't have the gene or it isn't activated. I'm guessing she came by her abilities in a whole different manner. With the way it looks, I'd say we're dealing with a transgenic because the gene encoding the toxin shares more similarities with plants than animals. I don't know how that happened because the last time I heard, they were doing this on mice, not humans."

"So, single white _transgenic_ female with meta abilities, counter-surveillance training and field experience," Cisco retorted while shaking his head.

"Not to mention a passing literacy with cybersecurity measures and how to bypass them," Felicity said.

At Cisco's scrunched up eyebrows, she explained, "Let's just say that if you could write code as sophisticated and as elegant as the ones on the payloads I found, you wouldn't be using a poor _Metasploit_ wannabe to deliver it. I'm searching for similar script signatures. Maybe she stole it or copied it from somewhere and that gives us a more complete picture of who this killer is."

"All this is good, but do we have any actionable intelligence for _now_?" Digg asked.

"The docks," Joe answered. "Two of the vics are connected to the Freeport zone."

"Three. The strip club guy is connected to a shell company for another shell company that holds a lease for one of the smaller warehouses in the docks," Felicity added. That much at least, she was able to glean from a quick look at the records she had turned over to Tommy.

"That makes it 3 for 3," Joe said. "You up for recon?" he asked Oliver.

 _Finally._ "Give me the lay of the land," he answered.

"Why don't you suit up, first?" Joe said.

Oliver nodded but before he could move to do just that, Felicity was already on his case. "Not so fast. You don't have the right gear."

He was about to object – he might not have his Arrow gear thanks to the whole SCPD fiasco but he had his Al-Sahim get-up ready to go – but she was already tugging him towards Cisco's workspace. "Cisco!" she called out.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"Go on," Cisco said as he took his leave from Caitlin after hearing Felicity call him. "I'll be right there in time for the flushing."

Caitlin nodded as she made her way back to the Treatment Room. "You might want to join them," she said to Digg as he started to move in-step with her, "I've got him."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Besides, you'll like what Cisco and Felicity have for you," she smiled. To Joe she said, "Detective, you want to join me for a minute?"

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"Felicity…" Oliver trailed off as he suppressed his irritation. He was itching to go into the field.

"I can't let you out into the world with that," she testily whispered as she pointed to the duffel she knew contained the black mercenary garb of the League. She knew that he had been hiding it and where but it wasn't her place to get rid of it, however much she really wanted it gone. "It would make you look conspicuous" – not to mention that him in his Al-Sahim suit gave her the heebie-jeebies – "and it wouldn't give you any kind of advantage against biological and chemical weapons. I won't have it, Oliver. Your safety is right up there in my priority list with breathing," she scolded, albeit in a hushed but barely restrained voice, as her hands did the talking for her.

Whatever objections he had was silenced after that. She was just looking out for him.

"Now, if you'll come with me…" she trailed off as she motioned for him to follow her into Cisco's workshop.

They came upon Digg helping Cisco put two crates on the work table.

"This is a prototype," Cisco said to Oliver as he patted one of the crates, "but it's custom-made for you. It works well enough even without activating the special features. Now, you might not like…

"Just open it, Cisco," Oliver said, failing to curb his anticipation.

Cisco shrugged his shoulders as if to say "Here goes nothing" before opening the crate. "As I was saying, you might not like the addition of the inner suit but we – Felicity and I – figured that having extra protection is always best," he said as Oliver looked into the crate and lifted what was basically a shapeless, black, full-sleeved onesie.

Oliver's brows furrowed in bewildered confusion but Cisco continued, "This is your new inner suit. It has two layers: the compressive nickel-titanium shape-memory alloy layer with contour tension lines and the protective outer skin made up of smart textiles, absorbent nanocellulose and responsive polymer gels."

At Oliver's continued perplexity, Felicity jumped in. "This is your all-weather inner wear. It might not look like it now but it's like second skin that's designed, when activated, to shrink-wrap around you while protecting you from the elements. The inner compressive layer molds to your body, allows you unhindered mobility and acts like a compartmentalized tourniquet system in the event of severe injury. The outer layer is a mix of responsive polymers, smart textiles and flexible membranes that respond to your environment. If it's hot, it creates pores to let your skin breathe. If it's cold, it insulates you. It's self-healing too, meaning that small nicks and knife cuts won't need extensive repairs. Bullet holes though, are another matter, so don't even think of getting shot. But if you do get injured, heaven forbid, the suit is also super absorbent so we don't have to worry about blood being left on the scene."

"And, don't forget that it can protect you from nerve agents, blistering agents and biological weapons like anthrax," Cisco added. "It can basically sense these threats and chemically deactivate them." That was the point he was trying to make with the polymer gels and the chemical catalysts they contain. "It can be a bitch to get into though, but we'll get to that later," he said as he opened the next crate.

Oliver was relieved when he peered into the second crate as it contained his more familiar uniform, albeit with full sleeves.

"Looks like your standard uniform but it has a little more _pizzaz_ built into it," Cisco explained. "Polymer Kevlar weave like before but less dense and enhanced with shear-thickening fluid inserts –"

"Liquid body armor," Felicity translated.

"And graphene nanoplatelets. It's even lighter than the hood you let the SCPD so carelessly destroy" – Cisco really just couldn't resist the dig – "is sufficiently stab-resistant and could stop a bullet while minimizing the impact on you, so much so that a bullet travelling at 1,400 feet per second only makes a centimeter of indentation. If you don't like the sleeves, you can always zip it off."

Oliver whistled. So, did Digg. Now they understood. And they were impressed.

"But wait, there's more!" Felicity teased, her mood lightening instantly when she saw the appreciation in Oliver's face. "Your tactical pants also got an upgrade."

"Felicity told me about your knee and said that it was a must-have, so here," Cisco said as he passed the garment to Oliver. "Same polymer Kevlar weave but impregnated instead with nanocellulose, so it still gives you enough protection even if it's way lighter than your jacket. There are battery-powered actuators in there that are designed to augment your anatomy to increase your stamina and mobility while minimizing the load on your joints. It's designed to work in tandem with your inner suit. Both together won't give you super strength but the combination will reduce the amount of energy you use while carrying a heavy load by about 7-10%. And it anticipates how you move so that it could give you that extra boost whenever you need it."

"And it's water resistant. So, your pants are basically part of a dry-clean-only-smart-flexible-lightweight-exosuit-of-armor now," Felicity remarked.

Oliver smirked. Leave it to his girlfriend to think of just about everything.

"But we rigged it differently for Digg," she continued as she retrieved two similar crates for their friend. "Yours was optimized for speed and agility. His is modified for strength and concealment," she said as she motioned for Digg to have at it.

Where Oliver's was green, Digg's was black.

"Want to see how it all comes together?" Cisco asked them.

They both nodded.

Oliver made to follow Digg and Cisco but Felicity held on to his arm. "Just a sec," she said as she gave Oliver two smaller boxes and prompted him to open them.

The first box was his retractable bow. And the second was his mask, although even it didn't survive in its usual form.

"The lens gives you night vision in low light and glare protection during the day. Not to mention that it can relay video in real-time when it's turned on, can give you sat nav in overlay mode and also comes with a built-in range-finder in target acquisition mode. But you don't have to turn it on. It'll act just like clear anti-fog lenses. I just don't want anything to get into your eyes, especially when this stuff can be blown into your face in powder form," she explained as she remembered Joe's intel.

Oliver was just speechless. So he set aside the two boxes on Cisco's workbench and turned to hold her face in both of his hands. And then he laid a quick kiss on her lips, then another – and because he just couldn't help it – just one more. He gathered her close to him then and whispered into her hair, "Thank you for having my back."

Felicity melted into his embrace and replied, "Always."

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 10:40 pm_

"So we're just waiting on him to wake up?" Joe asked Caitlin after she quickly explained everything to him.

"That's the hope. We've managed to get most of the toxin out. Hopefully this time, we get everything," she said as prepared the materials they'd need for the flushing. "Once that's done, then I can start bringing him out of the coma I placed him in," she expounded as she handed him a couple of large flasks.

But before they could even finish getting the equipment ready, the monitors had gone off again, prompting them to dash back to Barry's bedside.

"Barry!" Caitlin screamed as she saw him thrashing against all the lines that were connected to him. He had even taken out his breathing tube. She struggled to calm him. "It's okay. You're safe," she said repeatedly while trying to hold him down. She didn't know whether to be happy that he was finally awake or to be worried because this was, once again, out of the ordinary – even for him.

"No!" he protested as he finally overpowered her then jolted upright, sending a lot of the equipment crashing down around him.

"Barry!" she said again, more forcefully this time. She used her body to block him and held his face between her hands, forcing him to make eye contact with her. "You're safe." When that didn't seem to register, she shook him. "I'm here. It's Caitlin."

"Caitlin?" he asked when some sense had finally dawned upon him.

But before she could even speak, she found herself engulfed in his arms and squished into his chest. His whole body was trembling – she could feel it – but she didn't know if it was because of the adrenaline that was clearly pumping into his veins or something else. And then her shock had finally worn off a bit so that she could finally make out what he was murmuring repeatedly into her hair.

"Thank God, Caitie! You're safe! You're safe!"

* * *

What did you think? Don't be afraid to let me know by leaving a review. :)

Oh, and to those who want to know a little bit more about Tommy in my universe, you might wanna head on over to the first chapter of my other fic, Extra! Extra! It contains outtakes and vignettes in this particular universe of mine.

Until next time! Kisses!


	13. Chapter 13

We're kicking into high gear, people! Hahahaha! I hope I can keep the chapters coming at this rate! To the people who review, fave and follow this fic, thanks! This work continues because of you. Oh, and to the Guests, please reconsider signing up. I can't interact with you as much when you leave reviews and can't give you a thank-you surprise unless I can PM you. Anyhoo, without further ado: Chapter 13! Tada! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 13

Despite the confusion his ramblings had inspired, Caitlin decided to play along with Barry. In her mind, the first order of business was to calm him down. He had just extubated himself and his vitals were going wild – those two together, in his present condition, don't bode well for his continued recovery.

"Yes, Barry. I'm here. We're both here. We're safe," she soothed as she slowly put some distance between them. When she had finally been able to move enough to steady him and force him to again meet her eyes, she coaxed, "We'll sort things out, I promise but for now I need you to breathe with me. Can you do that?"

He didn't really respond but she found that he had begun to take steadier breaths. "You're doing great, Barry. Just like that. Slow and steady," she said as she herself took deep, calming breaths.

"Okay. You're going to have to help me get you back to bed," she said once he had established a regular rhythm of inhales and exhales. It was still faster than she'd hoped but at least it wasn't erratic – and he was still shaking.

He nodded this time and allowed her to guide him back to sit on his bed. But when it looked to him like she was going to leave, he immediately grabbed her and hugged her tightly again.

 _Okay, if it were any other situation, she would be utterly flattered,_ Caitlin thought. But this was getting ridiculous, especially when she knew from the sound of the collective sighs of relief she heard, that they now had a bigger audience.

"No! Stay!" Barry almost whined – and that was when she knew that he was trembling, not just from adrenaline but from actual, real, heart-pounding terror.

At the realization, she immediately went back to placating him. "I'm not going anywhere, Barry," she said as she run comforting fingers through his hair, "The Detective is here. Even Oliver and Digg. We're safe."

That got Barry to loosen his hold on her – only slightly – but it was enough for her to check the readout on the pulse oximeter she had managed to slip on his finger while she coaxed him to sit. It didn't look pretty so she motioned for Digg to prepare an oxygen mask. "I need to put an oxygen mask on you, Barry, so that you don't pass out. Are you okay with that?"

She felt him nod, so she quickly retrieved the oxygen mask that Digg had hooked up and put it around Barry's face. Once she'd finally got that done and Barry was distracted enough with the novel sensation of having the mask on, she and Digg laid him back on the bed. "I'm not leaving. I promise. I just need you to rest some more," she said as she began to do a quick physical assessment. His pupils were dilated but responsive to light. He was cold and clammy, and his pulse was still a bit jumpy. She held his hand to reassure him that she would not be leaving anytime soon but she motioned for Joe to come in and help.

"Hey, Bär," Joe said as Digg had finally cleared some space for another person to approach the bed. Everything had been in disarray – monitors were beeping frantically, lines were tangled up and a lot of equipment was scattered on the floor.

Barry swung his head towards him. "It's Joe. I know this is all confusing. But you're in S.T.A.R. Labs right now with everybody. See," he said as he motioned at Digg, Oliver, Felicity and Cisco. "You have a lot of questions, we know. We'll figure this out soon enough. But to do that, we're all going to need to settle down, okay? We don't want you to pass out, so take deep breaths and allow Caitlin to work."

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 10:45 pm_

Oliver and Felicity had been just seconds behind Joe and Caitlin when they reached the Treatment Room after the alarms went off on Barry's monitors. But Digg had asked them to wait outside because they were going to try and remove Barry's peritoneal catheter. Now, with Cisco, they anxiously awaited word from Joe, Caitlin or Digg about Barry's abrupt emergence from what should have been a medically induced coma. Standing prostrately aside was not any of their stronger suits but they weren't able to do anything about it. Joe had Barry and Caitlin and Digg were doing the best they could to head off whatever nasty consequences awaited their patient as a result of this most recent development.

Joe came out of the room first. "He has finally calmed down," he said. "John and Caitlin are just finishing the removal of the catheter thing."

The three released what would be their nth sigh of relief that day.

"But he's really freaked out about something," he continued. "And it has to do with Caitlin."

"Do you think it's just a nightmare or is Caitlin really in danger?" Cisco asked. Coma patients have been known to be unpredictable when waking up.

"We won't know for sure until we can really talk to him," Joe answered.

"Caitlin was there, too, when Barry was talking about the case," Felicity said. "So were you, Cisco."

"Which makes all three of us possible targets," Cisco breathed out. "So we're expecting the worst but hoping for the best?"

He was answered with an eerily affirmative silence.

"Now, I wish I went ahead and made my own exosuit," Cisco muttered. After all, he already had the schematics. All he needed was an excuse to spend a million bucks… well, and of course, the million bucks. But at least now, he had an excuse – a very, very good one. After all, he was the only other guy in the trio that a misandric serial murderer was supposedly hunting.

"Stop freaking yourself out, Cisco," Oliver said as he noted the increasing panic in Cisco's face.

"Easy for you to say, _Muscles!_ " Cisco snarkily replied.

"Guys!" Felicity said as she played umpire. "We can expect the worst productively. Oliver, you and Cisco can finish suiting up. Detective, I need you to help me with Barry and Caitlin."

He nodded his agreement.

They were just about to enter the Treatment Room when Digg emerged. "He's stable. He's breathing on his own without difficulty and we got the tube out already. You can talk to him now," he said to them. What he didn't say, though, was that Barry's panicked outburst had displaced the catheter and compromised the drain. As a result, they weren't able to flush out all of the dialysate – and hence, the remaining toxin out. Hopefully, it was in a low enough load so as not to matter. Caitlin seemed to think so, so he was going with that.

"Why don't you finish suiting up with Cisco and Oliver," Felicity suggested. "That way, you guys can be ready to go at a moment's notice."

Digg nodded and went on to follow his two other friends.

The ringing of Joe's phone interrupted their trek to the Treatment Room once more.

"Go on ahead," Joe said to Felicity after taking a quick glance at his caller ID. It was Eddie. "I have to take this first."

 _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 10:48 pm_

Felicity came into the room just as Caitlin finished hooking Barry back up to his IV and the remaining monitors. "Hello, there, Sleeping Beauty," she greeted Barry as she came into view. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Barry answered through his oxygen mask.

"You gave us quite a scare there, Barry," Caitlin sighed. She was just really relieved that he was awake and that his vitals were holding.

"Yeah, I don't think I've ever run that fast since forever – and you had me running multiple times," Felicity said. "I'd thank you for the exercise, you know, but I don't think my pride ever will."

They all shared a nice little chuckle at that. They all knew Felicity was the kind who tripped on air. Once their hilarity subsided, though, Felicity was back to business, "So, you remember anything from your very eventful day?"

He was iffy on the details. There was a fog in his brain. He tried to take stock of what he could remember. He drew a blank. "Not much," he answered and tried not to panic at that.

Caitlin squeezed his shoulder at that. _Give it time_ , she seemed to say.

"But you remember coming to your lab?" Felicity prompted.

"Uh-huh," Barry noted after a beat. "Had to do paper work today so I came early. Caitlin was supposed to meet me. I wanted to show her something I found" – he paused as an abrupt torrent of memories began to pour in – "Oh, God. I found something on the Crimson Kiss case. The M.E. just confirmed my suspicions this morning. There are nine other cases that could be connected… Oh God!" He sat up as the ominous sense of doom that had woken him earlier washed through him once more. "There was a phone call… from your number…" he said to Caitlin as his stomach plummeted and his heart beat trebled. He felt like choking - his vision dimming.

"Barry! Barry!" Caitlin called as she saw the light begin to leave his eyes. His heart rate was through the roof. Any other human heart at this rate ran the risk of rupturing. She needed to act fast. She needed to knock him out, or they'll lose him. "Felicity, that syringe, now!" she commanded as she pointed at the syringe that lay on top of the crash cart that was beside the blonde. It was the sedative she had asked Digg to prepare before he left in case this happened again. _And it was happening again!_

Felicity quickly handed her the syringe, whose contents she had promptly emptied into Barry's IV line. "Breathe, Barry," she said as pushed him back to the bed. "I got you, Barry. I've got you," Caitlin said as his vitals began to respond to the medication.

It was another tense few seconds before he stabilized again.

"How can he be so freaked out by a phone call from you?" Felicity asked after a minute, still thoroughly perplexed.

"That's just it, Felicity! I didn't call him this morning."

 _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 10:53 pm_

Joe was just about to scramble back into the Treatment Room at the shrill beeping he heard when he saw Felicity rushing out toward the computers.

"What's happening?" he said as he remained split on whether to enter the Treatment Room or stay in place.

Oliver and Digg, now suited up, came into the cortex at a run but they slowed down when they saw the girls and Joe by the main console instead of at Barry's bedside. Cisco brought up the rear.

"Barry got worked up over what he remembered so I needed to give him a sedative. He's just sleeping it off, Joe," Caitlin explained. "It'll take his metabolism 10 minutes tops to work the drug off."

"What did he remember?" the detective asked.

"He got a call from Caitlin's number but Caitlin's 100% sure she didn't make the call," Felicity supplied. "I think her phone's been cloned. And with the way he freaked, I think, whoever called Barry threatened Caitlin," she said as she ran the automated exploit she had been working on to find Barry's phone. This time, she needed to hijack the carriers for a bit to find the clone of Caitlin's phone using the towers.

Upon hearing that, all the men threw questions at Caitlin at virtually the same time. Oliver's "Are you sure, no one had access to your phone?"; Joe's "No one bumped into you this morning?"; Cisco's "Had your phone repaired lately?" ; and Digg's "Have you left it unattended?" had come within microseconds of each other.

"No… To all… Well, not that I know of," she answered. "Felicity, do you need it?"

"Where is it, exactly?" Felicity asked as she rang the phone. She needed to register a call for the trace to happen.

"In my bag, inside my locker in my lab," Caitlin answered.

"Keep it there," Felicity said, as she heard the ringer. "I don't want to risk a hot mic," she added as she clicked the call off. "We'll know soon enough if it's cloned or not." And it was going to be easier than finding Barry's dead phone.

"You okay?" Cisco asked Caitlin.

"I'm fine. I just want this over with," she answered. She had been shaken by the realization but being scared was not productive right now so she squelched the feeling.

"So, what do we have on the docks so far?" Oliver asked, immediately pivoting to the mission at hand.

Felicity called up a map of the Freeport zone to the display.

Joe took over. "There are two parts – the smaller and older southern side where the old docks are, and the bigger, newer piers near the wharf. The southernmost pier is closed to the public. It's too run down so it was sectioned off. It's mostly used as a container bay now. My bet is if something's going to go down, it's going to be there. It's secluded and poorly secured and neutral ground."

"Do we have eyes?" Oliver asked Felicity.

"There are almost no operational cameras there. No good angles. No satellite. Too overcast. We're flying Cisco's drone instead," she answered.

"On-site operation?" Digg asked.

"Yup. From up to a mile and three quarters," Cisco said.

"Digg, I need you to stay," Oliver said. "We need to secure this place."

"No," Felicity challenged as she handed him, Digg and Cisco their earpieces. "You are not going out there alone. No offense, Cisco."

"None taken," the engineer quipped.

"Felicity's right. You're too exposed out there without John. I'll stay," Joe said. "Captain Singh assigned an on-call team for this task force. I can call it in. And I have cars patrolling the area every fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Oliver exhaled. He wasn't stoked but it was the next best thing.

"We'll be fine," she assured him… or tried to. She knew he didn't like it. _Tough._

He wasn't in the least bit sold by that but he nodded anyway before he laid a quick kiss on her lips.

"Careful," she whispered before she turned on her comms and proceeded with their customary radio check. "Overwatch on comms. Radio check," she said into the comms.

"Roger!" came all three replies.

"Before I forget," Joe warned, "the Feds are going to be here first thing tomorrow. So, we better wrap-up what we can tonight."

The men nodded their acknowledgement. Satisfied that the comms were working and that there gear was ready, Cisco, Digg and Oliver turned to leave. But Caitlin called out, "Wait!"

She held a spray can in her hands. "This is a spray-on protective gel resin. Make sure you cover all exposed areas of your skin. And this," she said as she held out 3 small medical jet injector guns, "is what's left of Ray's nannites. If you've been exposed, just hold the barrel against the affected area of the skin then fire. Just make sure you surround the area, so repeat when necessary. Each gun is only good for three shots, so make them count. It's not a cure, but it'll buy you time to get back here."

The guys thanked her and took their leave.

"Protective gel resin?" Felicity whispered conspiratorially as she recognized the can her friend had given the men. It was a spray-on beauty facial mask.

"Well, it does coat your face with a thin yet protective polymer coat," Caitlin smiled unapologetically. Every bit of protection helps.

 _Starling City, Arrow Cave, 11:00 pm_

They were buried in paper. Oliver's workbench now looked like a veritable crafts table. Despite Felicity's penchant for going paperless, Tommy Merlyn liked his data on good old white pulp. So, after a cursory search for similarities in some or all records, he printed out the files returned by the query. It was probably a fifth of the size of the trove Felicity had sent over but it still produced two hefty sheaves. Armed with highlighters and a couple of scissors, Tommy and Laurel had color-coded the accounts, cut them out and pinned them on a map.

So far, they found six accounts that had the routing information of the same bank in Panama, four in Corto Maltese and another two in Hasaragua – and that all these accounts belong to one shell company or other. _Boy, these guys love their money and South America_ , Tommy thought as he parsed yet another page of data.

"Tommy!" Laurel said as she jumped up from her pile.

"What?" he asked as he looked up from his own sheaf. He knew her well enough to know that she's got something.

"They all reroute their money from bank to bank after every few days," she said as she showed him several papers from her stack. She had been tracking movement while he was the one digging into the shell companies.

"But all the accounts seem to end up wiring a portion to four bank accounts regularly – all in Gotham, specifically the Gotham National Bank."

Tommy whistled, "Can somebody yell 'conspiracy' now?" They all knew what Gotham National Bank was. It was laundry central for the shadiest of the shady.

"It's still a theory," Laurel cautioned. "We need more proof."

* * *

Don't shoot me, please. I promise, Barry's sleeping beauty shtick serves an ultimate purpose. Hint: Fluff!

Anyway, don't hesitate to point out gaping plot holes and other things I could address in the run up to the wrap-up. Let me know what you think below! Reviews feed the muse! Kisses!

 **P.S. I'm taking suggestions for sinister-but-benign-sounding law firm names - kinda like the Buffyverse's Wolfram & Hart but with a DC spin. Let me know ASAP, if you are so inclined. ;)**


	14. Chapter 14

I changed the formatting and experimented with the structure of the dialogue a little bit because I wanted to maintain the flow between characters in different locations. I hope it doesn't end up annoying you. Anyway, the obligatory disclaimers stand. You know the drill. XOXO

P.S. Thanks to those who took the time to comment on the last chapter. Your words are invaluable.

* * *

Chapter 14

 ** _S.T.A.R. Labs, Treatment Room, 11:00 pm_**

Caitlin returned to the Treatment Room after the men had finally hit the road. It was almost time for Barry's metabolism to overcome the effects of the sedative and she was mortified by the idea of him waking up without her there. She had had her fill of Barry hitting critical to last a lifetime. She sighed tiredly. _It had been a very, very long day_.

As she entered the room, the stillness immediately caught her attention. _The monitors have been too quiet_ , she thought. And then she realized that she had silenced their alarms after Barry's last episode so that Joe, Digg, Oliver and Cisco wouldn't have to rush in just for a panic attack that she and Felicity could've easily managed.

The epiphany gave her heart a jolt. She immediately rushed to Barry's bedside to check the readouts. The monitors showed that everything was good and steady. She quickly checked up on him, laid her fingers against the side of his neck to feel his pulse. And it was there – strong, steady, unwavering. Her body trembled at the realization, at the sense of relief that had overtaken her and at the frustration with her own reaction. Her medical training told her to believe what she told Joe, but her heart – her heart was something else.

Now that there was literally nothing else to do but wait – wait for Barry to wake up, wait for her friends to end this threat and wait for this day to finally end – her heart was also now free enough to speak to her most closely held fears.

After Ronnie, it felt like she would never love again, like she would never be whole again. But ever since she had met Barry, she had begun, unwittingly at first, to open her heart to the possibilities. She had begun to heal with him, laugh with him. He had taught her how to live again.

Today had threatened all of that. Today had unleashed the fears she had kept bottled up inside, the fears she wouldn't let others see – the fear of never seeing Barry smile again, never hearing him sing or laugh… her fear of losing him, of loving him, of him never loving her back. And at its very worst, the fear that she will still love him despite all that.

 _It was ridiculous._ _Borderline crazy. Illogical. Not at all her._ And yet she found herself in this impossible situation. It was only then that she had succumbed to the bitter truth: she was in love with a man who was so in love with someone else that she would forever be just a friend. Her head bowed in defeat. Just this once, because she couldn't help it any longer, she let it wash over herself – allowing it, acknowledging it.

And yet her heart would not let her accept it. She shook her head. It seemed that it, in spite of her brain, had the sheer audacity to hope.

 ** _Central City, en route to Starling City Docks, 11:08 pm._**

It was a black and starless night. And Oliver, Digg and Cisco had only Felicity's voice to guide them away from any traffic. It was late but the ports were still usually busy at this hour.

"Arrow, take the next left. Then it's all clear to Lake via Windsor. ETA to Target in 2 minutes," Felicity's voice said over the comms.

"Roger," Oliver acknowledged as he sped off on his bike. He was the forward party. Digg and Cisco were taking a more circuitous route.

"Convoy, leave Chubbuck on the next right. Go straight until the fork. Take the right one to Windsor."

"Roger that," Digg said and proceeded to follow what Felicity instructed. As he made the right on the fork, he reported, "On Windsor now."

"Take a left on Quay. Then head straight to the end. There's an alley there that's useful."

"Okay. Heading there," Digg complied.

"Arrow on Target," Oliver reported.

"Copy that," Felicity said. "Convoy, ETA 3 minutes."

"Copy."

"Doing a preliminary sweep. Finding a better vantage point," Oliver stated.

"Be careful. We've virtually going in blind," Felicity reminded him. Until Cisco got his drone up and running, all she had to go by were their GPS signals and it wasn't enough.

 ** _Central City, Southern Docks, 11:10 pm._**

Oliver concentrated on the job at hand. He was perched atop one of the piled shipping containers, scouting the area. The dark had always been a fickle friend. This time it looked like it had chosen to hamper him rather than help.

"Overwatch, I need night vision."

"On the outside edge of your right eyebrow, there's a ridge. Tap twice," came the instructions.

Cisco, having heard it, audibly smirked, "Looks like we're getting to test drive that baby after all."

Felicity's answering chuckle followed.

Oliver ran his right hand over the edge of his mask. The sensor was right where Felicity had said it would be. He tapped twice and was astonished as the whole landscape came alive in front of his eyes.

"Heads up, Convoy. Looks like it's going to be a long night," he said as he finally got a view of how wide an area they would be searching and the many objects that littered and blocked the way.

 ** _Central City, Quay Alley, 11:13 pm._**

"Why do I suddenly feel like a rabbit in a foxhole?" Cisco pondered from out of the blue as Digg rolled the van to a stop. There were in a secluded corner just outside the Southern Docks.

" _Because_ you are a rabbit in a foxhole," Digg answered as he finally put the cark in park. To Felicity, he reported, "Overwatch, Convoy in Target."

"Noted," Felicity said.

"Heads up, Convoy. Looks like it's going to be a long night," said Oliver's voice through the comms.

"Copy that," Digg answered. To Cisco, he asked, "You ready, Rabbit?"

"As I'll ever be. But we're going to have to work on your naming skills later," he replied as he got out of the van.

"Convoy, looks like we won't be able to spot a needle in this haystack. We'll have to do sector sweeps," Oliver said.

They had previously talked about the possible need for this back when they were suiting up and it looked like they're going to have to implement it. "No problem," Digg answered as he made his way to the back of the van. Once there, he donned the helmet Cisco had given him earlier. One of its perks: night vision.

"Copy. You take Sectors 2 and 3 in the South," Oliver directed.

"Roger that," he acknowledged as he readied his Glock. He turned to Cisco then, who was unpacking his drone – not like it looked like a drone but more like a modified industrial fan – in its collapsed form anyway. "You good here?"

"Yup. Go. I'll have this up and running in a minute," the engineer answered as he finally extended all four rotors of his quadcopter.

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:15 pm_**

"Sector 1 is clear," Felicity heard Oliver say over the comms.

"Copy that, Arrow," she said.

"Still not seeing what I'm seeing?" he probed. They tried to stream video between them but the transmission was too laggy and grainy for them to run the feed through their gait and facial recognition systems in real-time. The uplink from Digg's helmet was similarly buggy.

"Nope. We'll just have to wait for Rabbit to get his drone up and running. Speaking of…" she trailed off before calling Cisco, "Hey, Rabbit! We hopping there or what?"

"If by hopping you mean up-and-running, then yes. Establishing handshake in 3… 2… 1," he answered.

Felicity looked to the holographic display as the aerial video from Cisco's drone came in, "Copy that, Rabbit. Signal is clear." And since they now had the drone as both eye-in-the-sky and signal booster, she began to network Oliver's lenses and Digg's helmet into their system. "Arrow and Convoy, establishing handshake with your visuals now… And we are live, people." The display now showed live feeds from all three sources.

"I've got auxiliary," Cisco reported after she had mirrored Oliver's and Digg's feeds into his display. "We are looking good. Overwatch, I'm getting a closer look."

"Copy that, Rabbit," Felicity said as she began to run their gait and facial recognition software. The bug in her gait recognition program that had her cursing earlier was still being a pain, though. She had to fix that and fast. But to do that, it needed her full attention. "While you're at it Rabbit, could you take over on point for a minute? I have to fix the glitch in gait capture."

"I've got you, Overwatch."

"Sweeper teams, it's Rabbit on point," Felicity announced as she took a momentary leave and muted her end of the comms.

"Looks like you've got everything handled here," Joe said. It was the first time he'd had good look at how they operate on a live mission from behind the scenes.

Felicity started at the detective's observation. She had forgotten that he was still in the cortex. He'd been silent all along. "I hope so," she said. "But there's still a long night ahead."

Joe nodded. "On that note, I'll do a security sweep of my own." It was a big building. He better get started. "Call me when you've got something," he said as he took his leave.

"Will do," she promised.

 ** _Central City, Quay Alley, 11:17 pm_**

"Sweeper teams, it's Rabbit on point," Cisco heard Felicity say. After Oliver and Digg copied her announcement, he took over the live comms. "This is Rabbit on the helm doing a flyby at 5000 feet. Say Cheese!" He said as he guided the quadcopter to swoop over Oliver, Digg and the rest of the old dock.

The flyby allowed the onboard FLIR system to capture heat signatures. As multiple red dots laced his screen, he checked the location against the sector lay-out Oliver had previously described then warned, "Look alive, people. Sector 4 is hot."

"Copy that. Sector 2 is clear. Heading over to Sector 4," Digg said at the information as he abandoned his pending Sector 3 sweep and headed to where the action was.

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:20 pm_**

The men's audio stream played in the background while Felicity looked at the script of her program. It had returned several error messages but she can't seem to find anything wrong with the script. She decided to go through the event log again, just to check if she had missed something, but before she could really delve into it, a call from Starling came in.

"Go ahead," Felicity instructed even as she kept one eye on the event logs. Multi-tasking was a skill – and she was good at it. She listened to Tommy with half an ear before she heard him say, "We've found some things." Felicity's perked up at that. "Don't keep me in suspense, Merlyn," she said when Tommy didn't say anything after that.

"I'm not. It's just that, I think Laurel and I had just begun to unravel how deep this rabbit hole goes. Look, I'm sending over what we got."

She quickly opened the files Tommy sent. "What am I looking at here?" she asked as she saw what looked to be bank account numbers.

"Shell companies connected to all 12 victims regularly route money to different banks in South America," Laurel said. "Then they move money around a lot from there, too. What's interesting is that a part of that money always ends up in at least one of the four bank account numbers we sent you. All of them from Gotham National Bank."

Felicity's jaw dropped. Gotham National Bank may have some legit business on the side but it was common knowledge that GNB handled the financial dealings of a lot of shady businesses, too. Too bad they do it on _this_ side of legal. If not, they would have come tumbling down long ago – or not _. Powerful people seem to be ensuring the bank's continued existence_ , she thought as she remembered the numerous scandals that had plagued the bank and the same number of times the organization had come away scot free.

"Problem is, we dead-ended there," Laurel continued. "We can't trace to whom those accounts belong, legally anyway."

"Looks like we need to go on a fishing trip and my newbie powers won't cut it," Tommy said.

Tommy was right. But GNB was an organization that was not to be trifled with. They didn't have the time or the manpower. But she could do an end-run on that if she looked at tax records, couldn't she? She wasn't sure but it was something to think about. "Uh-huh. Let me think about that. What about the shell companies themselves?"

"I wasn't able to dig as deep yet. So far, the only link I could find," Tommy answered, "was that they all seemed to be served in one way or another by the same law firm."

"Which is?" Felicity asked, a little miffed that Tommy wouldn't just come out and say it.

"Kiehls Goodman Partners & Co.," he supplied.

"Ha! More like Partners in Crime," Laurel snorted sarcastically.

Felicity didn't think her jaw could drop even lower but it did. Kiehls Goodman, formerly Goodman Dyce, is a law firm and corporate service provider headquartered in Gotham that has about 45 offices worldwide. She was familiar with it because it was attacked by a hacker collective known only as MoD a few years ago – and she kept track of these things. The incident had led to a massive document leak that embroiled hundreds of politicians, celebrities and a whole slew of rich powerful people in an international tax scandal. The firm had maintained that they were above reproach and that they had adamantly followed international protocols to ensure that the companies that they had incorporated were not being used for illicit purposes. But now, regardless of the name change – well, as they say, _a turd by any other name_ … _and with many turds in the same place_ … "Did we just step into a criminal conspiracy here?" she asked, repeating what Tommy had earlier speculated.

"Well, unless we can uncover more solid evidence, we might as well be wearing tin foil hats," Laurel said, sounding audibly frustrated from the other end of the line.

Felicity sobered. Laurel was right. They had a lot of things that suggested it but none that would hold up in court and against very powerful enemies. Unless they could prove what the money in those bank accounts was used for, they essentially had jack. _Zilch. Nada._

"But we'll look into it more," Tommy said at the heavy silence from Felicity's end. He and Laurel both knew just how much was on her plate right then. "If we got this from a fifth of the data you sent us, there has got to be more in there."

"Thanks, you two," Felicity said at their persistent determination because there was nothing else to say. "Thanks so much."

"No problem," Laurel said. "You leave this to us."

 ** _Central City, Southern Docks, 11:25 pm_**

Oliver and Digg staked out the whole sector by working two different angles. Oliver was on top of another one of those containers, while Digg was earthbound.

"Heads up. New players coming in from the north," Oliver reported, as he noted some men entering their area of interest. He repositioned himself to get a better view.

Digg adjusted his position to spot them. Since his helmet had more space for the numerous thingamajigs Cisco had thought up compared to Oliver's re-engineered mask, he had been the one assigned to lace their targets up for the software to ID. After a few moments of fine tuning to get the focus just right, he said, "I have a visual." There were three of them – generic, unremarkable men who could pass for dock workers to anyone, but to his trained eye all he saw was one principal with two bodyguards.

"Woah," Cisco said as he got several hits. "Says here, these guys are from Blüdhaven and allegedly part of the White Sharks gang. Who are they and what are they doing here?"

"What are you thinking?" Digg asked Oliver.

Oliver had heard of this particular gang. They had their fingers on pretty much any criminal pie in Blüdhaven primarily because they were fixers. He didn't like the feeling in his gut, especially when he remembered that they also controlled their city's port. "I don't like this," he said as he contemplated what to do. But before he could make a decision, a tall figure in a dark hoodie emerged from the shadows and approached the man. "Track but do not engage," he ordered as he began to stealthily stalk his new prey.

"Roger that," Digg said. He needed to move if he wanted to get a face on their possible target. But before he did, he hailed Cisco over the comms and said, "Rabbit, call Overwatch, would you? I have a feeling we're going to need that gait software and fast."

 ** _Central City, Quay Alley, 11:28 pm_**

"Rabbit to Overwatch," Cisco called to Felicity. In the background, Digg and Oliver had begun to track their person of interest. The latecomer seemed of particular interest since all indications point to their perp. "Rabbit to Overwatch," he repeated when Felicity didn't pick up.

"Go ahead, Rabbit," Felicity's voice crackled.

 _That was new_ , he thought as he heard static break up her words. They didn't have any problems earlier. But they had more pressing problems now. "How are we with the gait recognition software? Looks like our perp is here but we couldn't get a good visual," he reported as his two friends followed their target from two different vantage points.

"There wasn't any problem with the program itself. The problem was that it was designed to run independently but it was running as a subroutine within the facial recognition software. That's why it was producing an error…"

"Felicity, no time for a play-by-play here. Possible target in sight," Cisco reminded her.

"Ooh. Sorry," she said. After a second, "It's up. I'm running the …"

As the screen pinged with a match, Cisco cut her off, "Heads up, Arrow! We have a match. I repeat. We have a match."

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:28 pm_**

Felicity's attention was diverted from the main action by a startling epiphany. The error in the gait recognition program was not a runtime error but a logic error. Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. Because the gait recognition was being forced to run under the auspices of the facial recognition program, it couldn't accept her manual input because it created an internal logic error – meaning that she was trying to put a gait profile on the wrong face.

Meaning… Meaning…

 _Oh Frak! Oh, Frackity Frak!_

She quickly checked all the data the gait recognition program had acquired on automatic capture. It took a couple of minutes to collate but there was no denying what was on the screen before her.

"Oh my God, Oliver!" she gasped. I think there are two of them!"

 ** _Central City, Southern Docks, 11:30 pm_**

"Say again, Overwatch?" Oliver asked. Felicity's last transmission was drowned by static. He and Digg had been listening to the conversation between their suspects courtesy of one of his Trick Arrows before that last burst. But before he could get anything else, a loud bang coming from the docks had diverted all their attention.

It had caused their perp to look to her right, catching Digg on her sight line. That had caused her to run and the three other men to scamper in different directions. "I've been made," Digg said as he ran after their target.

"I'm on your six," Oliver said as he ran after them but through the tops of the shipping containers.

"I'll try to head her off with the drone," Cisco said.

It was a few seconds before Oliver had heard the whir of the quadcopter above him. _Good,_ he thought. Having lost sight of both Digg and their subject, he decided that this would best be fought on the ground, with Digg and him cornering their perp from two angles while the drone completed the triangle trap from overhead. So he vaulted across the last two containers in his path and proceeded to jumped down from container wall to container wall until he was safely on solid ground. Once he bounced up on his feet, however, he found himself face-to-face with their cold-blooded murderer - the woman with the deadly kiss.

"Love the color. But it'd look better on me," she said before he had the world pulled from right underneath him.

Oliver looked around him as he hit the ground and saw that his feet were all tangled up in vines that seemed to sprout from where she stood. _What the ever living fuck?!_

 ** _Central City, Treatment Room, 11:30 pm_**

Caitlin was getting antsy. After Barry hadn't woken up as predicted, she had checked his blood glucose level and found it on the low side of normal, so she had opted to change his IV from cold saline to a custom mix of dextrose fluid in the hopes of giving his body a much needed energy boost. She'd done that four times in a row since then to no visible change in his status.

 _Please don't slip into a real coma_ , she mentally pleaded. She shuddered at the thought because it wouldn't be something she could control. She looked at the monitors again. Everything looked okay.

She had no reason to doubt them but a sense of insecurity had begun to invade her. She knew she was beginning to get a little paranoid, but she just couldn't help herself. So, she quietly lowered the rails of his bed, sat beside him and laid her ear against his chest just to make sure his heart was still beating and that he was still breathing.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Barry had blinked against the harsh light. He had just come to in a place he knew wasn't his bed. He started to take stock of his body. There was something on his chest. He looked down and saw what looked to be a crown of brown hair. "Cait?" he asked, still a bit groggy.

He saw her sit up. His waking brain wondered, though, why she was blushing.

"You're awake," she said, with obvious relief in her voice. She reached for the clamp on his IV to turn it off before she disconnected him from it.

He started to speak but his lips erupted in pain.

Caitlin, having realized the source of his pain, quickly retrieved a small jar from the crash cart. It was medicated lip balm. He knew then that his lips were chapped because of dehydration. It was known to happen to him now and then, especially when she'd needed to revive him with sugar – lots and lots of sugar. It seemed that the pain had jolted him into complete and utter wakefulness. But it was Caitlin's presence that brought him into acute awareness. He just looked at her then, seemingly mesmerized as she proceeded to rub her fingers against the balm then unto his lips. She carefully smoothed them over his broken skin. It should've hurt but her cool fingers had soothed where she touched.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Caitlin knew that her blush was intensifying under his stare but there was no way to stop it, so she focused on the task at hand. She carefully lined his lips with her balm-coated fingers as she tried to calm the pounding of her heart. She can disguise her laying her head against his chest as a medical necessity all she wanted but she knew better than to lie to herself. She'd been caught. It was embarrassing. But there was no helping that.

Once she was satisfied that she'd covered the affected area with enough of the drug, she began to withdraw her hand. But before she fully could, Barry caught it in his.

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled meekly at that.

"And I'm sorry," he muttered contritely.

"For what Barry?" she asked with a confused arch of her brow.

"That voice in the phone threatened you, Cait. That's the only thing I remember clearly before everything becomes muddled. I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess," he said as he averted his guilty eyes.

"Barry," she said as she squeezed his hand and prompted him to look right back at her. "I would have been in this mess regardless. And I would rather be in this with you than without."

He pulled her into him then, to give her a warm, if awkward hug. She ended up with half of her body on top of him but it felt, with the way he held her, that he was more than okay with that. "I'm sorry, Caitlin. I really am," he said into her hair.

A heady warmth began to spread through her at his embrace but before Caitlin could savor it, a series of loud crashes from outside the room had broken their moment.

"Aww, would you look at that," a shrill voice taunted from the door.

That had them both scrambling out of bed – with Barry doing his best to shield her. He managed to do so just before the seemingly crazy woman stalked menacingly towards them.

"Sorry, puddin'!" she cackled as she socked him with a solid right hook. "But she's gonna' have to come with me!"

* * *

So, how'd you like that? Leave a review below to let me know what you think! Kisses!


	15. Chapter 15

Finally. I'm back and I've done it. I've finished the shortest, single-most exasperating chapter I've ever had to write. Now I understand why fights are so hard to capture on paper. Hope I didn't fudge it. Anyway, so sorry for this delay. Had to run around a lot the past few weeks. And thanks, as always, to those who leave a review. You keep me writing! Won't keep you further. Hope you enjoy! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 15

 _ **Central City, Southern Docks, 11:31 pm**_

Oliver struggled against the vines that coiled around his feet. He quickly maneuvered to retrieve his knife but before he could even unsheathe it, another vine caught his right hand. And before he could even blink, his left.

"Nuh-uh-uh," the woman tutted. And then a malevolent smirk marred her face as she clenched both of her fists.

Her intent was clear. The vines responded.

Oliver felt them pull taut against his body, binding him, forcing him into a penitent pose. He was helpless against them. The more he struggled, the more they tightened. He gritted his teeth.

She walked towards him then, in that particularly sauntering gait of hers, confident in her victory. And as soon as she was close enough, she studied him for a moment then ran her fingers appreciatively along his jaw, his lips, his throat.

He felt himself responding to her nearness. His lips curled in distaste.

"Interesting," her sultry voice noted. "Too bad, you'll be in such poor company."

He fought his body, forced it still as he bided his time, waiting, watching.

"Oh, well, time for a goodnight kiss. Pucker up," she said as she swooped in to deliver her final blow.

Oliver capitalized on her forward motion to butt his head forcefully against hers. She stumbled back in blind pain. The vines loosened around him with the loss of her concentration.

Just enough to loosen around his hand.

Just enough for him to reach his knife.

But not enough to spare him from the blood curdling scream that erupted from her lips.

She advanced towards him with naked fury in her eyes and a whip of thorny vine in her hand.

Trapped, Oliver's eyes closed reflexively as his body anticipated the lash.

But it never came.

 _ **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:32 pm**_

The crazed female punched Barry. _Hard._

And he felt it.

And he felt it again when she slammed him against the wall.

His knees gave out just in time to see her come after Caitlin. He tried to move but his body wouldn't.

Fortunately for him, Caitlin was no wilting flower. As the clown-faced woman swung towards her, she discharged the full power of the defibrillator on their unwitting assailant and sent the hag flying through the air.

Unfortunately for them, the wacko just laughed it off – cackling hysterically like having been zapped with a thousand volts was the best thing ever.

But all that changed in a snap, when the hard edge that laced her voice belied her almost manic glee. "I do love a broad with _spunk!_ " she gritted as she sprung from the floor and made for Caitlin yet again.

 _ **Central City, Southern Docks, 11:32 pm**_

Digg had doubled-back once he realized that he'd lost his target and Oliver. And it looked like he came back just in time to stop the woman from flaying his friend alive. He caught the tail-end of the herbaceous whip on reflex and pulled. His suit kicked in, giving him a powerful boost that allowed him to forcefully snap it from her hand.

That turned her vicious anger on him.

And before Digg knew it, he was already on the defensive against a full-on assault, countering punch after punch, kick after kick.

She was relentless, ruthless, brutal, putting a surprising heft to her blows.

His helmet cracked. And he was just glad that he could still take a hit. Or two.

Then three.

Four.

 _Six._

And then he saw an opening and took it. His fist connected with her face, his foot with her gut. And finally, _finally_ , he was able to put some distance between them.

He threw his helmet off. Took a breath. Then primed his body to attack. But before he could strike again, he was lifted off his feet by the neck. By what, he didn't particularly know. Digg dangled precariously from the ground. Helpless. Exposed.

She picked herself up and sauntered towards him then, a saturnine smile on her face. "Sorry, darling," she said as she squeezed her right hand. "You're plucked."

The coils that held him constricted. He gagged. He choked. He struggled.

Until he heard an arrow swish through the air and slice through whatever had him bound.

He kissed the dirt with a hard thud.

 _ **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:33 pm**_

 _No!_ Barry thought as he launched himself at their attacker. He didn't care that he was winded or that he was aching all over. He didn't care that he didn't have his speed. He caught her heel – just barely – but he brought her down and that was what counted. Caitlin needed time to get away.

"Oh, come on, _sweetie!_ " the batty female groused as she fell. "You don't have the Juice. To. Take. Me!" she angrily said, punctuating each of the last syllables with a kick.

Barry did all he could to hold on.

 _ **Central City, Southern Docks, 11:33 pm**_

Oliver saw the woman call the giant creeper vine that snatched Digg from the ground like he weighed nothing. _Come on, come on_ , the archer thought as he viciously ran the serrated edge of his blade against the thick tendrils that trapped him.

Once the last of them snapped, he scrambled for his bow, nocked an arrow and fired.

The sight of Digg falling told him that he'd succeeded. But before their enemy's livid scream confirmed it, he was already moving quickly toward higher terrain – making for the shipping containers at a dead run. He wasn't waiting for her to turn on him. He expected it and wanted all the advantages distance and elevation could give him.

What he didn't expect though were the thorny projectiles that accompanied her wrath. He dodged the spikes – narrowly – only to be hounded by the large, serpentine vines that suddenly sprouted from the ground to come after him.

The earth trembled. The ground shook. He stumbled to a halt as tree roots punched through the soil beneath him. He took a breath and regrouped. This was the environment that bred him. His body knew this by instinct honed. He sprung up and began to trust his feet.

He managed to elude the vines that grappled at him but he couldn't see Digg through the sudden lushness of his surroundings. He can't see their target either – which was more worrying. So he waited, used his ears.

There was little warning for the thorny jungle vine that swung against his head. Only reflex saved him from getting creamed.

She was right behind him.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Cisco circled his drone back just in time to see Oliver in a fight. "What the actual frak?!" he exclaimed. The sylvan denseness of the previously barren soil bed of Sector 4 would've astounded him, if not for the incongruity of Oliver's fencing with seemingly sentient tree limbs.

The woman used her thorny weapon like a flail, aggressively wielding it to snap at Oliver's head - all while she directed smaller strangler vines to grab whatever they could of him. She pushed him higher and higher on the root he was on - so much so that he'd landed himself on one of its hanging limbs.

"A little help here, Cisco," Oliver huffed as he heard the familiar whir of the drone. He needed help - and fast. It was difficult to balance himself on the narrow aerial root while dodging her attacks. An inch either way and he'd fall to a very painful death. Stop and he'd get caught. "Any time now," he gritted, as he used his blade to slash at the tendrils that hounded him. He took another step back.

"Hold on," Cisco said as he jostled his machine into position. It wasn't an easy task to train the drone's laser sights on a target that was moving amidst the abundant forest cover.

The woman advanced with her weapon yet again. But this time, Oliver had been ready for it. He ducked and lunged, thrusting his blade towards her body.

But before he hit her flesh, a tendril caught his hand, crushing his wrist enough for him to lose the knife.

She capitalized on that and kicked him squarely on his chest.

He stumbled back but his feet held.

And then she came gunning for him again.

Cisco aimed his laser on the woman but her furious drive to get at Oliver made him miss. The laser cut through the root they were standing on instead. "Oh, shit!" he muttered as he saw both of them fall against the root and slide down on it.

Oliver and the woman landed in a tangled heap. She grappled him but he reversed her hold quickly enough to pin her down.

She struggled to unseat him but he was too heavy.

"Yield," he snarled as he trapped her arms with his hands.

She softened underneath him. But the glint in her eye kept him from trusting it.

"You really are something special," she laughed - her seductive chuckle teasing.

The air around them turned heavy. He felt his body relaxing.

"Yes, handsome. Just feel it," she coaxed.

"No!" he protested. But he was losing control. He felt his body submit.

And the next thing he knew, she was on top of him.

She used that advantage to choke him.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Cisco kept his drone steady. It had looked like Oliver had the upper hand. But that turned on a dime. He kept his sight trained on the woman as he urged his laser to finish charging. "Come on, Baby," he gritted.

Once the light turned green, he fired.

He had nicked her bare arm and it had been enough to take her attention off Oliver and turn it on his drone.

"Uh-oh! Not good! Not good!" Cisco muttered to himself as he saw her scream. The earth cracked and sprouted greenery. He hurriedly maneuvered his baby away from it. His lasers were only at 50% and that was about all he's got.

But he wasn't fast enough. The rotors of his quadcopter protested as several vines shot out and clung to them.

Critical alerts popped all over his screen. With two engines failing, his drone was going to go down – and there was nothing he could do about it.

 _ **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:34 pm**_

 _Hold on, Barry_ , Caitlin thought as she hurriedly filled a syringe with enough sedative to down an elephant while Barry suffered through the impact of the intruder's attacks. Barry wanted her to run. _Not gonna' happen._

She didn't know who this woman was, only that she was somehow connected to this case. And she wasn't going to let her go, _period_. As the syringe topped out, she quickly drew it out and stuck their assailant – emptied it into her, right where the back of her neck was marked with a scarred 'X'.

It stopped her from beating Barry to a more bloody pulp – if only for a second. Then the hag took the syringe from her neck, turned at her with crazy eyes.

Caitlin took several steps back out of shocked fear.

"You're making me want to break the rules, sugar!" she said as a sinister smile formed on her face. "And that ain't gonna' come cheap!" she threatened as she turned on Barry and used the syringe to stab and puncture his lung.

"No!" Caitlin screamed, scrambling towards him as Barry struggled for breath. But before she could get to him, the woman caught her by her shirt and flung her towards all of the equipment.

"Quit yappin'!" the manic blonde spat as Caitlin whimpered and lost consciousness. "I just did ya' a favor. He was gonna' die anyway."

 _ **Central City, Southern Docks, 11:34 pm**_

Oliver coughed and sputtered. Getting choked was no fun. _No fun at all_ , he thought as he tried to clear his throat.

The sickening crunch of metal called his attention. _Cisco's drone._

He forced himself to turn on his belly and pushed himself up, reclaimed his bow and set his sights on the woman who was proving to be a whole lot of trouble. He retrieved an arrow… steadied his breathing… spotted his range.

But just before he could shoot, Digg shot out from out of nowhere and tackled the woman to the ground.

"Uunnnh…" Digg groaned, feeling that flying tackle on his own body. It, unfortunately, had also taken the wind out of him.

The stillness around him prompted a quick check on the body beneath him.

He'd knocked their target out.

His breath whooshed out in relief as he rolled away from her.

 _Finally!_

 _ **Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:37 pm**_

 _It was too bright,_ Felicity thought as she came to. She blinked the starkness out of her eyes as she found herself lying on the floor with a terrible headache. She touched her forehead only to find a tender lump.

She tried to remember what happened.

 _There are two of them. Of what?_ Her brain struggled.

And then it all came back to her.

After she squealed her realization over the comms, she had seen Joe's body fly across the cortex, flung by a seemingly invisible hand. And then she had seen her – the clown-faced, crazy-eyed blonde, who threw a baseball bat at her just like a dart and knocked her out.

 _Joe!_

The thought had her sitting up despite her headache.

 _ **Central City, Quay Alley, 11:40 pm**_

Oliver and Digg made their way to the van with their quarry. They've bound her using a pair of space-age handcuffs Cisco had given to Digg and used one of Oliver's special cable net arrows to cage her and make it easier to carry her between them.

They both silently hoped that she'd stay down the rest of the way home. They didn't really know how they'd be able to contain her abilities.

They were just about to reach the van when Cisco came rushing out.

"It's bad. It's S.T.A.R. Labs. They've been attacked," Cisco said, almost tripping over his words.

Oliver's stomach dropped. Digg's heart almost stopped.

And then all three of them scrambled to get themselves packed up and ready to go.

* * *

Fire away! Reviews, favs and follows are always welcome! Kisses!


	16. Chapter 16

Here it is. Sorry for the long wait. Real life. Crazy things happened. But I won't keep you long. All previous disclaimers apply. Hope you like this! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 16

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:46 pm_**

 _Caitlin!_

Barry screamed as he jolted awake. Or at least, he thought he did because no sound came out of his mouth.

The surreality of the moment was quickly overtaken by the pain that seared his chest. It burned. More importantly, it knocked the breath out of him.

No. Not knocked. _Squeezed._ Each breath came in short gasps. He tried to calm himself down but his body was clawing for air.

"Oh, no, no, no, you're not," Felicity muttered as she rushed to his side. She had just come back into the treatment room after dragging an unconscious but breathing Joe with her. Barry had been unconscious but stable when she saw him a minute ago. Now, he was awake but he was gasping.

"Cait. Ta–" Barry whispered, "taken."

"I know, Barry. I know," Felicity answered shakily. She knew in her gut when she first came into the room a few minutes ago that Caitlin had been abducted. And she also knew that she didn't have the medical training to handle this situation. "But I need you to save your breath, okay?" she said as she scrambled to retrieve her phone to call Digg.

"Felicity!" a familiar voice called out. It was Oliver.

"Over here!" she responded frantically.

The guys had taken ten minutes to get to the docks. Oliver made it back in five. He'd left Digg and Cisco to deal with their perp while he sped through the streets of Central City. The edge in Felicity's voice put his body on high alert. He hurried to her. His heartbeat trebled as he neared. He had a feeling it wasn't going to be nice.

And it wasn't.

Joe was on the floor – clearly knocked out, Barry was gulping air like he couldn't get enough and Caitlin was nowhere to be found. _What happened?_

"I don't know what's happening. He was fine a minute ago," she said as she pulled his attention back to Barry.

 _Holy shit._ A quick look at Barry told him that he needed help – fast. "Call Digg now," he directed Felicity as he picked Barry up from where he lay and carried him hurriedly back to the bed.

"One step ahead of you," she said as she waited for the call to connect.

"Blonde. Scar. Ne–" Barry tried to say as he choked on air.

Oliver couldn't make out what he was really saying, but he needed Barry awake. "It's gonna' be okay. Just stay with me, buddy," he said as he quickly reassessed his friend. He found a hole on his shirt – right over his chest – that was caked in blood but with no wound to be seen on his body.

"You're on speaker," Felicity said as she put the phone near Oliver. She then focused her attention back to Barry, who looked like he was trying to say something to her.

"John, Barry's choking on his own breath. It looks like his right lung's been punctured but the wound outside already healed," Oliver reported while Felicity tried to calm their very anxious and visibly dyspneic patient.

"Is his trachea deviated?" Digg asked over the phone.

Oliver ran his fingers along Barry's neck to trace his friend's wind pipe. "Yes, it's deviated to the left. And his neck veins are bulging."

"He might be decompensating from a pneumothorax. You're going to have to work quickly. There's a special needle in the third drawer of the crash cart. It's packaged in a white tray," Digg said urgently as Felicity hurried to find it amidst the scattered contents of the crash cart. It sure looked like a scuffle upended it.

"Got it," Oliver exclaimed when she handed him the said tray.

"Check if the needle shows a red indicator near the pointed tip and see if you can roll the valve on the other end. If not, get a new one."

"It's red. And the valve's good."

"Okay, put Barry on his side so that you have the affected lung topside," Digg instructed. Oliver and Felicity complied and rolled Barry on his left.

"I want you to feel for the rib from the nipple to just below his armpit. Mark the upper part of that rib. Swab the skin with the antiseptic that's also in the tray. That's where you're going to push the needle in."

Oliver hurriedly slid his finger from Barry's chest to the where Digg told him to. He felt for the superior aspect of the rib and marked it by denting the skin with his finger nail. He would later notice that he'd lost his glove but it didn't matter to him right then.

"I've swabbed it," Oliver reported after running the moist cotton pad against his friend's skin. To Felicity, he said, "Hold his arm. I need it out of my way."

Felicity quickly complied as Digg said, "Now, get that needle. I need you to push it in slowly at an upward 45-degree line that's aimed at his heart."

"The whole thing?" Oliver asked, his hands trembling.

"No. Go slow. Wait until that red indicator pops green then tell me."

Oliver aimed the needle towards Barry's heart, exhaled to steady his hand and plunged the needle through his friend's chest.

He heard the hiss of air and saw the indicator turn green. "It's in! It's green."

"Just air? No blood?" Digg asked.

"All air," Oliver answered.

"Okay. Slowly take the needle out but leave the catheter with the valve in place."

"It's out," Felicity said as Oliver finally removed the needle and secured the catheter.

"Roll the valve and make sure that catheter doesn't fall off. See if he's breathing better."

After the valve let out a longer hiss, they rolled Barry unto his back and waited.

A tense second passed. Then another. And then Barry's gulping wheezes turned into relieved and easier breaths.

"You okay, buddy?" Oliver asked.

Barry nodded and when it looked as if he wanted to speak, Felicity quickly preempted him. "Don't even try talking. Breathe first," she admonished as she placed an oxygen mask on him.

"He's okay, John. He's okay," Oliver stated.

A relieved sigh escaped Digg before he answered. "Keep an eye on his breathing. You might have to let the air out again. We're two minutes out."

"Copy that," Oliver responded as he cut off the call.

He turned to Felicity, only to see her waver on her feet.

"Felicity!"

 ** _Central City, en route to S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:48 pm_**

"He's fine, right?" Cisco asked worriedly as Digg clicked the call off. He had taken the wheel when they upped and left the docks because Digg had to keep their perp secured – meaning knocked out cold.

"He's breathing," he answered diffidently because who the hell knew how long that would last. "But you better get us there quick."

Cisco nodded his agreement and punched it. "You got it!"

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:49 pm_**

Felicity felt her world stutter at the wooziness that suddenly slammed her. She tried to blink it off a couple of times and thought that she had successfully controlled the dizzy spell, only to realize later, once she was safely in Oliver's arms, that she had almost fainted.

"Hey, take it easy. Here, take a seat," Oliver said as he guided her to a nearby stool. He squatted in front of her to assess her injuries. "What happened?" he asked as he noticed the bump on her forehead.

She sighed. She took a few moments to steady herself and get the facts straight in her head before she answered, "She just came at us. I just saw Joe's body flying through the door and hitting the floor and then she threw a bat at me. Next thing I knew, I was waking up with this" – she said as she pointed at the bump on her forehead – "and a bad headache… I think I hit the projection system and knocked it out before I hit the floor," she gingerly continued as she winced at the pain on her shoulder.

Oliver brushed his fingers against the bump and shook his head. "Who's she?" he asked as he made his way to the small fridge they used to cool Barry's IV fluids. He remembered seeing an ice pack there somewhere.

"I think she's our killer's accomplice. She's the one who followed Barry this morning, not the woman in the sketch," she explained as she took the ice pack Oliver handed her. He then made his way over to where the detective lay unconsciously on the floor.

"That's the glitch we were having. The facial recognition program was trying to pin a face on the wrong gait profile," she recounted as she watched him work.

Oliver checked Joe's pulse. It was steady and so was his breathing. _Good to know,_ Oliver mentally sighed. But his relief was short-lived. When he checked Joe for other injuries, he found two small holes encircled by red marks on his shirt. It looked like the detective met the business end of a Taser.

"How's he?" Felicity anxiously asked, interrupting her own story.

"His pulse is steady. He's breathing fine," Oliver answered even as he hoped that Joe hadn't suffered a heart attack or a stroke. He didn't tell Felicity any of that because he didn't want to agitate her further and trigger another near faint. He continued working on Joe instead, loosening the man's tie and shirt buttons before he moved the detective into the recovery position.

Mollified by Oliver's answer, Felicity continued, "Anyway, when I came to, Joe was still out but breathing so I moved on to the Treatment Room. Barry was banged up. Then I called Cisco because the comms weren't working."

"And Caitlin?" Oliver prompted.

Felicity averted her eyes.

It was Barry who answered him. "She took her. And I tried to stop that crazy woman but she was strong, Oliver – picked me up like I was nothing," he said after he chucked his oxygen mask.

Felicity agreed. "And with how she destroyed this place, it looks like she was. Just like someone hopped up on Mirakuru... and Speed," she said.

"What did she look like?" Digg interrupted his friends as he came into the room. He had caught the tail-end of their conversation. And he wanted this other woman found. Except for Cisco, all of them – including himself – were all hurt and banged up. _Someone has got to lock this place down and tight._

Three pairs of startled eyes found him but he went on nonchalantly. "Cisco and I secured the perp in her cell. He's on his way – said he just needed to make sure that the whole area is sealed securely," he explained before he repeated his question. "So, what did she look like?"

"Tall," Felicity supplied.

"Blonde," Barry said.

"Crazy," Felicity offered.

Digg raised an eyebrow at her.

"What? She had wild eyes!"

"She talked funny," Barry interrupted. "And she had a scar – an 'X' on the back of her neck."

That revelation had Digg and Oliver sharing a look.

Then Cisco came rushing into the room, "What did I miss?"

 ** _Starling City, The Diggles' Apartment, 11:52 pm_**

 _"…In business, WayneTech experiences another solid week as it launches its first advanced genomics and biotech facility in Central City…"_

Lyla clicked off the TV. She had been trying to fall asleep for the past hour-and-a-half but she couldn't. It could've been just the excess energy from the impromptu mission they had run but deep down she knew it was because her husband was not beside her.

She rolled to look at the empty half of their bed, but before she could settle down, she felt her phone vibrate. She retrieved it from her bedside table. It was John. A cold dread settled on her stomach. They'd already said their goodnights over the phone just after she came home this evening. _This couldn't be good._

She answered the call, "Johnny?"

"Lyla, we have a problem."

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 11:57 pm_**

"It's not even that bad anymore," Felicity complained as she and Oliver waited for Digg's pronouncement. Cisco, Digg and Oliver had loaded her and their friends one after the other into the CT scanner located in one of the enclosed areas adjacent to the treatment room. Barry and Joe went first owing to their more serious conditions. They'd just finished _her_ scan and were awaiting the results. Oliver was adamant about her taking a seat but she was getting antsy with all this sitting-around-and-not-doing-anything – especially when Caitlin was missing.

"You only say that now," Oliver admonished as he switched the hand that was holding the ice pack against her forehead.

It was only then that she noticed the rash. "Oliver!" Felicity exclaimed as she grabbed his arm. "What happened?"

He remembered just then that he'd lost his glove. And that probably happened during his fight with their suspect. But he was still alive so it was probably nothing. "It's probably nothing, Felicity," he shrugged, trying to head off any additional distress on her part.

"Doesn't look like nothing to me," Felicity challenged.

"Not to me either," Cisco said as he returned from having pushed Joe back to the Treatment Room. Digg had cleared both Barry and Joe. They were all waiting for Felicity's results. "Looks like bad poison ivy," he said just before a jolt seemingly went through him. "That's it! That's it! Poison Ivy!"

"It's not poison ivy, Cisco," Felicity snapped. "It's that woman!"

Cisco looked at her just like she grew another head. But her obvious anxiety stopped him from making an ill-timed dig.

It took two blinks for her to realize what that could mean. "What did she do to you?" she frantically asked Oliver as she worked herself into a fine panic. "Frak! Did she get the toxin on you? She got the toxin on you! Oh my God! Oh my" –

"Felicity!" Oliver interrupted her as he threw the ice pack to Cisco – who almost didn't catch. Oliver used his uninjured hand to hold her shoulder, "Don't worry. It's not even painful – only a little itchy and I'm still alive. I'll shoot it up with the nannites if you want. And I'll even let Cisco get the UV lamp so we can see for ourselves, all right?"

When she huffed and nodded her head after a second, he let her go and looked meaningfully at Cisco. The engineer nodded at him and went to the Treatment Room to get the UV light while Oliver used the jet injector gun to dose himself.

Digg's shadow diverted his attention from the pinch of the gun.

"Your scans look clear – at least from what I can see. There's no overt bleeding and there aren't any fractures," Digg addressed Felicity as he came back from the viewing room after looking at her cranial CT scans. He expected her to shrug it off so he looked at her sternly to pre-empt her, "A concussion is nothing to shrug off."

To his surprise she just nodded distractedly. Digg didn't even know if she heard him. "Felicity?"

"Just please take a look at his hand, will you?" she huffed as she pointed at Oliver. "Looks like _she_ got to him despite the suit."

Oliver presented his hand for his inspection. "I think I brushed against her skin."

"Looks like the one Barry got on his neck," Digg said. "But we won't know unless we look at it with"–

"This!" Cisco cut in as he came back into the room with the UV lamp.

Digg motioned for the engineer to hand it to him. Felicity nervously squeezed Oliver's other hand while everybody else held their breaths.

The lamp bathed Oliver's hand in an iridescent violet hue but the lack of the tell-tale red glow of the deadly toxin had them all mentally heaving a sigh of relief.

"Feeling dizzy? Sick?" Digg asked his friend.

Oliver shook his head. Except for the weird weakness that overcame him whenever their murderess was near, he felt fine – for the most part.

"So he's good?" Felicity asked.

"As long as he doesn't develop symptoms over the next few hours, he's good. I don't see any of the barbs sticking out anymore," he said as he reached into his pocket and retrieved a foil packet. He ripped open the package to retrieve a cotton pad soaked in antiseptic and proceeded to wipe the affected area.

Oliver held back the hiss his throat was trying to make.

"Wait, didn't she like, choke you too?" Cisco remarked as he replayed the whole mission in his head. But he stopped himself from saying anything else after catching the glare Oliver was giving him. _Oh, if only looks could've killed._

Oliver had wanted to leave that particular detail out to keep Felicity from worrying more. But well, the rabbit was let out of the bag. He looked at her to gauge her reaction. But before he could figure her out, the sting of Digg's swabbing virtually all of his exposed neck with antiseptic interrupted his thoughts.

"You're going to be fine," Digg said as he finished. To Felicity, he said, "You're both going to be fine but you' – he said as he looked at her pointedly – "are gonna have to take a breather. You hear me?"

Digg waited until Felicity nodded before he took Cisco away to help him check on Barry and Joe.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Barry quickly changed into a new set of sweats right after Digg had cleared him. Digg said that he had a couple of cracked ribs and to take it easy but hell if he can do that now. Caitlin was kidnapped. She was in danger. There was a lot they needed to do. He felt his breath tighten and his chest seize with the rising tide of anxious energy that emanated from him. The pain forced him to take a deep breath, so he did. He took another to center himself just before he went back to the Treatment Room to meet his friends and figure out how they were going to get Caitlin back.

He came back ready to get started, only to see the room empty except for Joe, who was trying to escape his bed.

"Woah, you should stay in there," he told his surrogate father. He moved to help settle Joe back, but the detective waved him off.

Joe seated himself on the edge of the bed instead. "I'm better, Barry."

"Glad to see you up. You all right?" Digg asked Joe as he entered the room with Cisco.

The detective nodded. "At least I'm awake now. Looks like I missed a lot," he said as he indicated the mess around him.

"Blacking out after being tased would do that to you," Oliver quipped as he ushered Felicity into the room and sat her down on the nearest available horizontal surface.

"What do you remember?" Cisco asked.

Joe could only shake his head. "I was doing a sweep of the main hallways. All of a sudden I heard some noises, followed it. I remember taking a blow to the chest then nothing," he recounted as he swept his gaze around the room. "Where's Caitlin?"

A heavy silence met his question. Clearly something was wrong.

It was Barry who spoke up. "She was taken by the woman who did this," he said as he swept his hand towards the fallen equipment.

"Not to mention she also stabbed Barry, knocked Felicity out and trashed my holographic display system," Cisco muttered to himself.

"You should stay in bed," Digg cautioned as he tried to get the detective to stay where he was and rest.

"I'll have plenty of time later," Joe said as he stood up despite the bigger man's protest and started taking off the wires that connected him to the only remaining cardiac monitor instead. "Do we have any idea who she is and where she has Caitlin?"

"Yes and No," Felicity answered. "I think she's our killer's accomplice. She was present in Starling City during the seminar. There's video of her that's confirmed by facial recognition. And gait recognition points to her as the one tailing Barry this morning." She let that sink in for a moment before she added, "We don't know who she is yet. But I think we have enough for an ID. And no, we have no idea where she could have taken Caitlin."

That meant they had to scour a large area – which means they would need manpower and therefore, the additional resources only the CCPD can provide.

"You guys have another place where you can do your thing?" Joe asked Felicity, Oliver and Digg.

"What do you mean?" Cisco asked.

"We're going to have to call the CCPD," Joe said. "You all know there's no way we can't. We need manpower and all of you can't be here when they arrive."

Cisco looked at his friends for confirmation that this was the best course of action. The archer, the speedster, the soldier and the hacker nodded their agreement.

"I have enough left here to set-up an auxiliary site," Felicity responded. "But we'd have to make do with a lot less processing power."

"Why can't we relocate to somewhere else in this whole place? It's big enough. That way we can maintain processing power and be in close coordination," Cisco suggested.

"This place is going to be crawling with CSI," Barry remarked.

"And we need somewhere more covert to run the Flash and the Arrow from, when needed," Digg added.

"Aren't we exposing ourselves too much?" Cisco pondered aloud.

"We'll say that Felicity, Digg and I are your friends who dropped by earlier so you'll have a reason for why our prints are all over the place. The rest, I think, Joe can set up," Oliver said.

Joe nodded at him. "I'll need Cisco and Barry with me for a while to sell our cover."

"What if they ask how we followed our leads?" the engineer pressed.

"Then you tell them that you're beta-testing new software for a friend," Felicity supplied as she stood up. "Hmmm… I think we better cover you with an NDA. I'll get Laurel on it."

Cisco just realized how much more adept his Starling City friends were with cover-ups. "Okay, okay," he conceded. To Joe, he asked, "How much head-start do we have?"

"Ten minutes, then I call."

When everybody disbanded to get to work, Oliver turned back to Joe. "Detective?"

"Yeah?"

"Make sure you keep your distance from our suspect. I think she can compel anyone to do her bidding, especially when she literally gets her hands on them. I don't know exactly how, but, better safe than sorry."

 ** _Starling City, Arrow Cave, 12:00 mn_**

They always ended up like this – with at least one point of their bodies touching. Sometimes it was just their pinkies that overlapped; sometimes it was her head on his shoulder. This time, Laurel's feet were cushioned on his thigh. _And it was more than okay_ , Tommy thought as he flipped to the next page of the document he was reading.

Since they were pretty much in for a long night, he and Laurel had decided to relocate to the couch on the far end of the lair. The team had repurposed that corner into a living area for him all those months ago when all of them hadn't been really sure whether it was safe or not to let him out into the real world. It had been his holding cell. The perimeter of the area used to be lined with metal bars, but those have been retracted beneath the floor – ready to spring back up when they needed it again.

Laurel had asked him if he was okay with being back in what used to be his prison. God knows, there had been some pretty dark times then. But he didn't really mind being back in this space and he had to reassure her _twice_. He might've sounded crazy to her, but it was actually one of the very few places he felt the safest in.

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing noise of Laurel's phone.

"Hello?" Laurel asked as she sat up to take the call.

He was just about to settle back into reading his stuff again, when a stunned "What?!" left Laurel's mouth.

 _That_ had his body stilling. He knew right then that something was up.

"Okay, okay," she said after a minute. "I'll draw it up."

He looked at her expectantly as she finished the call. At her continued silence, he raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"That was Felicity. They were attacked at S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin's been taken. And I need to draw up a non-disclosure agreement in five minutes," she rattled off.

Before he could even begin to process that, the sounds of footsteps and a baby drew his attention to the lair's secondary entrance. It was Lyla with little Sara in tow.

 _Oh boy!_ He muttered. _This was going to be an even longer night._

* * *

Don't forget to let me know what you think! Kisses!


	17. Chapter 17

Happy New Year! I know it has been a while. A while seems like an understatement, but well, we're another chapter into this behemoth of a story. This journey has, at times, exhausted me and frustrated me, and if it weren't for your encouragement, this story would've found its place in the well of lost plots. So here's to you, for all the love you've given me and this story! Cheers, my friends! And a Happy, Happy New Year! XOXO

* * *

Chapter 17

 ** _Unknown Location, 12:10 am_**

"Wakey, wakey!" came a shrill voice that grated on Caitlin's waking brain. The dimly lit interiors did not stop her from squinting as she tried to shake off the remaining wisps of unconsciousness.

She took in her surroundings. She was on a ratty couch in a shabby room surrounded by grubby walls. There was a distinctly earthy smell that permeated her senses and reminded her that she was as far as possible from her sterile environment in S.T.A.R. Labs as she could possibly imagine. She attempted to sit but was hindered by shackles.

"Welcome to our humble abode!" the voice screeched yet again. It drew Caitlin's eyes to the center of the room. There the abductor stood, excitedly batting her eyelashes as if expecting some cheery response for welcoming her victim into what essentially was a dank and deplorable prison.

Caitlin remained silent. It would probably take anyone a moment or two before their brain settles into this bizarre reality. Hers felt like it was waking up into a nightmare.

Apparently, her abductor had confused her reserve with another thing entirely. "You poor doll, thinkin' 'bout your man, huh?" the woman commiserated with her victim, reminding Caitlin of Barry's uncertain fate. And that seemed to have snapped the doctor into a new and profound awareness. Caitlin blinked away the tears that clouded her eyes but she couldn't stop them from forming. Everything came rushing back to the forefront of her mind.

"There, there. Things will get better when Red comes back. She'll be here soon," the clown lady said as she sympathized. But in the blink of an eye, she was back to her diabolical self. She single-handedly drew Caitlin up from the couch by the chains that bound her arms. It was only when she was upright that Caitlin felt the ball and chains around her ankles. "But until then," the hag said as she nudged Caitlin forward, "there's work to be done."

 ** _Central City, Undisclosed Secondary Location, 12:15 am_**

"Felicity!" Oliver called out as he saw her begin to unload one of the crates from the van.

"What? It's just a crate!" she protested even as she replaced the crate on the van's floor to re-shoulder her backpack. She wanted to bring the crate with her because she needed to set up her backup servers quickly.

"Didn't Digg tell you to take it easy?" he admonished as he moved to assist her.

"Says the guy who almost got choked and poisoned to death," she huffed.

"Fe-li-ci-ty…" Oliver almost whined. He thought he had gotten away with trying to keep his injuries from her. Turns out he didn't and she was more than a little pissed about it.

"You don't get to Fe-li-ci-ty me. I might be a second too slow and a step too short right now but I know that you chose to keep your injuries from me – which by the way, is sooo not cool" –

Oliver interrupted her to say, "It turned out to be no –"

"And don't say it's nothing because it's something!" she grumbled as she tugged the crate from out of his hand. She knew she was being a little petulant but it irked her that he would keep something so serious from her.

"Look, Felicity, I'm sorry for neglecting to tell you about my injuries but I'm not the one with the concussion here," Oliver said as he tried to placate her. He knew he deserved some of her ire but he'd be remiss if he didn't keep her from getting too worked up and triggering another fainting spell. If there was a hard line he wasn't going to budge on, it was her well-being and he wasn't going to apologize for that. "I understand that we all have to work double-time, but there's a fine line between being stubborn and stupid and we won't be helping Caitlin any by being both."

Felicity was taken aback. Oliver wasn't usually one to mouth-off but it essentially shut her up. She may have gone too far by snapping at him so she took a moment to steady her breath. It wasn't enough to douse all of her anger, though. "You're right. We'll talk about this later," she said, still with a bite of irritation in her voice as she turned away from him and headed towards their new location.

It was Oliver's turn to huff, only to realize that she had not taken the crate with her. He shook his head as he carried it with him and followed her anyway.

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 12:_ ****_20_ ****_am_**

Joe went ahead and called in the CCPD, leaving Barry and Cisco to sort through the information that would be relevant to the police.

They had essentially closed the case by successfully matching the toxin and the trace DNA from the barbs obtained from Barry's neck to the main suspect's buccal swabs which Cisco had taken while he had been securing her in a pod. But whatever satisfaction they could've derived from all those weeks of hard work coming to a close was washed away because when it came to Caitlin's abductor, they had nothing.

Barry rubbed a hand over his face. The memory of her anguished scream as he got stabbed in the chest was haunting him.

A review of the in-house footage of Caitlin's abduction got them a whole lot of nothing. Signal analysis showed the same noise pattern that destroyed the footage that could've helped them find his – no, _their_ – attacker.

Barry had wanted to start bagging and tagging evidence but Joe was adamant that he let it go. For their story to sell, Barry was going to have to _remain_ the victim – and that was that. Barry didn't know what to do with himself. Half of him wanted to stay put. The other half wanted to start scouring the city for her but his speed was still shaky at best. Cisco told him to give it a little more time lest he ended up risking his progress by being too quick on the gun.

They had already fed Caitlin's profiles through Felicity's facial and gait recognition programs. Cisco cast a wide net over the city in hopes of picking up the trail but it's been cold. But since they wanted blanket minute-by-minute coverage, he had left the whole system running after installing a special patch that would let Felicity run the whole thing remotely once she got their auxillary site ready. But since they have yet to hear from Felicity, the search was getting colder and colder by the minute.

 _Caitlin_ _,_ Barry mentally sighed. His mind was scrambling for another way to find her, to help her. This was the woman who had risked her life time and again for his, saved him more times than he could count, picked him up when he needed encouraging… and he was stuck in S.T.A.R. Labs, unable to do anything for her. He repeatedly clenched his fists in frustration.

A commotion by the entry way jolted him back into the present. Joe ushered Eddie, Captain Singh and a handful of uniformed cops into the cortex without much ado.

"What the hell just happened here, West?" the captain demanded as he surveyed the wreck.

"Dr. Caitlin Snow, a S.T.A.R. Labs employee and Barry's personal physician was abducted by an as yet unknown assailant. We believe that her abductor and the prime suspect in Barry's case are working together," Joe responded.

"How are the cases connected?" the captain asked.

"Dr. Snow ran a test on Barry's samples and found that he had been dosed with scopolamine, a drug that lowers inhibition and causes amnesia. I went to Vice with it to see what they knew. Perez laid it all down for me – how the drug's being peddled as Twilight Mist, how it allegedly comes from the docks and how Barry was the tech who was signing out all of their cases. That's when it hit me: this is how our vics could've been connected. I got two solid leads to work on so I asked Eddie to look further into the drug angle while I looked at the docks."

At this, Cisco jumped in. He knew that they all needed to keep questions to a minimum so that they could control the flow of information and direct their resources where they really need them. "That's where I came in. I tagged along with Joe. When we got there, I used one of our weather drones to snap a few shots to get the lay of the land," he said as he gathered the detectives and Singh around the only working monitor that had survived the assault. "I did a preliminary pass," he commented as he allowed the men to take in the slideshow of pictures he had curated earlier, "And found this," he said as he paused the presentation and zoomed in on a shot of their prime suspect with the Blüdhaven gangsters.

"I was able to get a cleaner picture. We found a match by facial recognition," he said as he showed the hit they got off the program.

"Where were you when all this happened?" Singh asked Eddie sharply. "I thought you're the lead in this case?"

"Running down leads on Twilight Mist. We uncovered older cases that fit our murderer's M.O. in a number of other cities where the drug has a high burden," Eddie answered, relaying what Joe had communicated to him so far. All the running around the docks was news to him though. It annoyed him that he knew squat about that but Joe usually had a good reason not to loop him in.

"We didn't really have any time to call back-up anyway. It wasn't long before everyone was running everywhere," Joe added.

"There was some sort of mini earthquake, I think," Cisco added, as he referenced the ground-shattering emergence of a forest on previously barren land. "Maybe a 3 or 4 on the Richter Scale."

"Where's she now?" Singh asked, inquiring about their prime suspect.

"We got her contained in a makeshift holding room here," Joe reported.

The captain leveled the both of them with a baleful stare. Cisco gulped as several police officers surrounded him at Singh's direction. "Bring them to where you're holding her," Singh instructed. To the officers he said, "I want the place secured. Nobody in or out unless it's us five."

After Cisco and his entourage of cops exited, the captain looked at Joe again and continued to grill him. "All this possibly connects Barry's case to the three victims. What's their case got to do with Dr. Snow's abduction?"

"The pattern of signal disturbance we had at the precinct is similar to the one that disrupted the security cameras here," Barry answered.

"That's awfully thin," the captain said.

At Singh's still unbelieving expression, Barry continued, "Caitlin is gone because of me. I had her working the case. The only thing I remember clearly from earlier today is that I got a phone call this morning. The voice threatened me by leveraging Caitlin. Don't you think that it's a little more than a coincidence that she gets threatened and abducted on the same day?" His voice might've gathered force by the end of his tirade but he wasn't about to apologize.

"Way to bury the lede, Barry," Eddie deadpanned to diffuse the situation.

Captain Singh shook his head. He could feel a headache coming. "Is there any way to ID the caller or trace the number?"

Barry shook his head. "The voice was artificially distorted. We tried to trace it but it turns out, the caller cloned Caitlin's phone. There's no way to tell unless we get access to the carrier's logs." He conveniently left out the word "legally" but that was fine by him. He was seriously hoping that Felicity was already doing her thing right then. If they had any hope of finding Caitlin, it lay with her.

"What do we know about her abductor?"

"Tall, blonde, professional – possibly with field training," Barry answered. "I made a sketch."

"Get away vehicle? Transit time?"

"No dice on a make and model but transit time is anywhere within the last 35 minutes," Joe answered.

Singh shook his head again as he took the sketch from Barry and gave it to Eddie. "Thawne, have our techs run this through facial recognition. All databases. Put a BOLO out for Dr. Snow and the perp. Get people down at the DoT to review traffic cam footage. Tell them we could have a live chase on our hands. And get CSI here ASAP."

Eddie nods at his chief and went to do what he was told.

"Both of you, with me now," Singh said to both Joe and Barry. "Let's talk to our perp."

 ** _Starling City, Arrow Cave, 12:_ ****_25 am_**

Lyla continued to stare at the sketch John had sent a few minutes ago while waiting for Tommy to compile the files Felicity had sent over. It was unmistakable. It was one of their agents in Task Force X. The woman maybe taking the clown act a little bit too far but there was no doubt that she was looking at Harleen Quinzel a.k.a. Harley Quinn, reported missing in action after an op to capture a notorious drug kingpin in Hasaragua went south.

It wasn't her op but the failed mission in South America happened just after the Siege of Starling. She was pretty sure that there was a kill order on Quinn's head, especially when Waller's every attempt to engage the kill chip implanted at the base of her skull had failed.

Now, it seemed that she had substituted one murderous cause for another. Lyla sighed as she cradled Sara a little closer to her chest. If what John said was true – that they were faced with a metahuman _and_ Quinn – then they were in for a very long and dangerous night. At first blush, Quinn seemed so far gone that many agents on Task Force X refused to work with her even under threat of outright cancellation, but there was a cold savageness to her, an edge obscured by her almost manic glee and puerile antics that made her a perfectly capable killer.

"Here are all the case files Felicity had sent over," Tommy said as he cued the folders on his screen.

"Does this have the crime scene photos?" she asked as she continued to look at the screen over his shoulder.

"Yeah, and there's an annotated timeline, too," he answered as he sent a copy of the said file to Laurel – who was off working to build some legal cover for the team – and finally vacated his chair for Lyla.

Once she was settled, Tommy took Sara from her. They both didn't want the baby anywhere near their suspect's greatest hits.

Lyla took over from there, scrolling through the photos. If there was one thing she could glean from the photos it was that there was a precision, a delicacy to the kills that she doubted someone like Harley Quinn was capable of. That gave her pause. If Quinn wasn't the one offing these men, then she was the one in charge of extraction. Cold dread seeped into the pit of Lyla's stomach. Extraction to the self-styled Clown Princess of Crime meant only two things: death and destruction.

 ** _Central City, Un_** ** _d_** ** _isclosed Secondary Location, 12:_ ****_25_ ****_am_**

Felicity nibbled on her lower lip as she waited for her systems to come online. She had been jittery about this whole thing. She wasn't able to vet the hardware but Oliver had assured her that there was at least a working internet connection in their new rebel hideaway. She was almost afraid to discover a dial-up modem – because who knew what constituted "working technology" to a man who had been stuck in an island for so long – but she almost kissed the guy when she found the fiber optic cable that was to be her lifeline.

She had then set up her servers as quickly as possible, while Oliver and Digg retrieved several crates and more hardware from the van. Once everything was exactly to her specifications, however rough they may have been, she threw the switch on and was now sweating it as her system came to life. She really hoped that this set-up will be robust enough to handle what she needed it to do. _Come on, baby,_ she mumbled to herself. _Momma needs you._

For Oliver and Digg though, the last ten minutes had been interminable. With all the running around, moving hardware and equipment (because, yes, they didn't really want Felicity on her feet too much), and setting it up _exactly_ how she told them to (because, yes, they wouldn't even know where to start), they thought that they would never be able to shrug off the nervous energy that had begun to rub off on them. But when her fist finally pumped the air, they expelled the breath they didn't realize they were holding.

"We're in!" she exclaimed as she turned towards them, wearing a smile they hadn't seen since they left for the field earlier that night. "We're in business now."

 ** _Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs, 12:_ ****_30 am_**

Cisco had redirected their suspect's containment pod to the little known viewing dock one level above the main reactor floor. This was where Harrison Wells had spent his time overseeing and directing the construction of his then masterpiece, the piece-de-resistance that would've sealed him into the annals of history. But that was not to be. And Cisco was secretly relieved.

With what he and Joe had been uncovering, he realized just how much he'd been blinded by the man's brilliance and ambition. But what they had now wouldn't have been possible without it – and if there was a silver lining to the fallout that followed the particle accelerator's demise, it was The Flash. He had been having the time of his life, letting his creativity fly. _It sucks that he had to keep his innovations secret but if it kept them safe, he was all for it,_ he thought as he led the whole entourage to the viewing unit.

It was a big space shielded from the prying eyes of their now awake suspect by a one-way mirror. Wells didn't spare any expense on the floor-to-ceiling glass window or the sparse interiors that belied the detailed craftsmanship the room entailed, including the recessed alcoves that still contained precious works of industrial art.

It took a moment for all his companions to take in the room and the woman before them. She was awake, wary but curious, with her now tattered clothes showing the signs of her previous struggles.

Singh approached the window purposefully. "Can she hear us?"

"Not yet," Cisco answered as he brandished the remote that connected the room to the PA system. "Just tell me when."

When the captain was about to go ahead and question their suspect, Joe held him back. The detective remembered Oliver's cautionary words about this woman being unusually persuasive, and more importantly, that they hadn't read her _her_ rights.

"Captain, she doesn't know that we – the CCPD – have her," Joe admitted. "We took her when she was already down and bound."

"Someone got to her first," Cisco said as he showed Singh a wide shot of The Arrow fighting her. The angle fortuitously obscured much of him but had enough detail for anyone with eyes to make their suspect out. He was grateful for the close crop, or else the captain would've surely noticed the sudden sprouting of greenery in the docks.

"Who the hell is this woman?" Singh asked, incredulous at the attention she had seemingly attracted from the criminal underworld, yet frustrated at the lack of such attention from law enforcement until right then. "Do we even have a name?!"

There was a pause before Cisco stammered, "Poison Ivy. We call her Poison Ivy."

* * *

Don't forget to let me know what you think. Kisses!


End file.
